Kathryn Montgomery is a professor in the Public Communication division of the School of Communication and heads the Center’s Youth, Media and Democracy project. She comes to American University with more than 25 years of experience in both the nonprofit field and academe. For 12 years, she was President of the DC-based Center for Media Education (CME), which she co-founded in 1991. During her tenure at CME, Montgomery’s research, publications, and testimony helped frame the national public policy debate on a range of critical media issues. She led a coalition of child advocacy, health, and education groups in a series of successful advocacy campaigns, leaving behind a legacy of policies on behalf of children and families. They include: a Federal Communications Commission rule requiring a minimum of three hours per week of educational/informational television programming for children; a content-based ratings system for TV programs; and the first federal legislation to protect children’s privacy on the Internet.

Before moving to Washington, D.C., Montgomery was a media studies professor at California State University, Los Angeles, and at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is the author of Target: Prime Time – Advocacy Groups and the Struggle over Entertainment Television (Oxford University Press, 1989). Montgomery currently directs the Project on Youth, Media, and Democracy through AU’s Center for Social Media. The project’s 2004 report, “Youth as E-Citizens,” documented the variety of ways that young people are using the Internet for politics and civic engagement. She is also writing a book on youth and digital media for MIT Press. She received her Ph.D. in Motion Pictures and Television from UCLA.