Cathy N. Davidson

Cathy N. Davidson served from 1998 until 2006 as the first Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke University, where she worked with faculty to help create many programs, including the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and the program in Information Science + Information Studies (ISIS). She is the co-founder of Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory, HASTAC (haystack), a network of innovators dedicated to new forms of learning for the digital age. She is also co-director of the $2 million annual HASTAC/John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Competition. She has published more than twenty books, including Closing: The Life and Death of an American Factory (with photographer Bill Bamberger) and The Future of Thinking: Learning Institutions in a Digital Age (with HASTAC co-founder David Theo Goldberg). She blogs regularly on new media, learning, and innovation on the www.hastac.org website as Cat in the Stack. She holds two distinguished Chaired Professorships at Duke University, the Ruth F. DeVarney Professor of English and the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies. She has been awarded with Honorary Doctorates from Elmhurst College and Northwestern University."