Dr. Katherine Cost

Biography

Dr. Katherine Cost is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Waterloo. Her research primarily focuses on child developmental outcomes through the lens of a socio-ecological model framework. Dr. Cost's work examines individual factors in child health behaviors, including screen time, sleep, and physical activity, as well as temperamental and sex assigned at birth variables. She also investigates proximal and distal contextual influences such as household income and neighborhood quality, particularly in relation to systemic issues like racism and classism. By leveraging large longitudinal datasets, including population-based clinical samples, Dr. Cost aims to identify critical variables within individual family contexts that affect child development. Her research employs a range of statistical methods, including supervised and unsupervised machine learning techniques, to distinguish between signal and noise in data regarding child developmental outcomes. Her findings have been featured in prominent journals such as the Journal of the American Medical Association Network Open and the Canadian Journal of Public Health. As a dedicated researcher, she actively contributes to public discourse on children's mental health and developmental trajectories.

Research Interests

Experience