As the VP of Research Insights and the Director of the Developer Success Lab at Pluralsight Flow, Cat Hicks studies the science of how developer teams learn and thrive. Cat is a social science leader in tech with expertise leading applied research teams to explore complex areas of human behavior, empirical intervention, and evidence science. Cat serves on the Advisory Council of the University of San Diego Center for Digital Civil Society, as a research affiliate in STEM education research at UC San Diego, and as an advocate for increasing education access. She holds a Ph.D. in Quantitative Experimental Psychology from UC San Diego, was an inaugural Fellow in the UC San Diego Design Lab, and has led research at organizations such as Google and Khan Academy.