Professor Catherine Davies

Profile

• Research expertise in how home environments, early education, and socioeconomic inequalities shape children’s language and wider development.
• Shared reading; screen use age 0-5; school readiness,
• Major research contributions on COVID-19 impacts and the role of early education.
• Lead for the Leeds Child Development Unit, our family-friendly lab for studying language development.
• Quantitative and qualitative expertise including lab-based behavioural and experimental methods, corpus analyses, randomised controlled trials, longitudinal studies, evidence reviews, and evaluation methods.
• Translating early education research and practice to policy through advisory roles across local, national, and international government. Expert witness to the UK COVID-19 Inquiry (2025) and co-author of the UK Government’s independent report on screen use by under-fives (EYSTAG, 2026).
• Research partnerships with educators, speech and language therapists, local authorities, and policymakers, including long-standing collaborations with Leeds City Council.
• Experienced leader of externally funded, interdisciplinary research and international collaborations; doctoral and postdoctoral supervision.
• Additional expertise in research culture and funding policy; University Dean for Research Culture 2021-25; advisor to the Wellcome Trust; REF2029 panel expert.

Bio

I received my PhD from the University of Cambridge in 2011, focusing on how children learn to produce and understand names for objects. After a postdoc at the University of Kent, I joined the University of Leeds and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2018. I became Professor of Language Development in 2022. I was Dean for Research Culture from 2021-2025 and remain committed to advancing more positive and inclusive research cultures.

Research supervision

I welcome PhD enquiries on language and literacy development in the early years, particularly:

• How interactions at home and in early education shapes children’s language development
• How family circumstances and socioeconomic inequalities influence language and learning
• Screen use and young children’s language development
• How research evidence informs early years policy and practice.

I also consider projects on research culture and funding policy, particularly how universities and funders can support inclusive, effective research environments.

Interested in applying?

If you have a strong project idea that connects with my interests, I’d be glad to hear from you. To help me respond, please:

• Read my relevant publications (listed on this page) and explain how your proposed project connects with my expertise
• Include a short outline of your research question, proposed approach, and relevant experience
• Attach a brief CV and let me know your funding plans
• Tell me if you are approaching several potential supervisors with the same proposal
• Write the enquiry yourself: I’d like to hear your own thinking, so please check carefully any AI-assisted text before sending.

Speaking and consulting engagements

Please reach out via c.n.davies@leeds.ac.uk or drcatdavies@gmail.com

Research interests

Recent projects

• ESRC/ UKRI Metascience research grants round 2 to C. Davies (PL), Blatch-Jones, A., Bloch, C., Degn, L. (2026-2028). What Works in Building Inclusive, High-Performing Research Cultures? A Contribution Analysis at the Funder–Institution Interface (APP107507). £300K.

• ESRC Standard Grant to Henry, L. (PI), Botting, N., Moss, R., Davies, C., Gonzalez-Gomez, N., Hendry, A. Hill, E., McGillion, M., Prior, E., Reimers, S., Shapiro, L. (2024 -2027). Born in Covid Year - Core Lockdown Effects (BICYCLE).

• UKRI Ideas to Address COVID-19 to N. Gonzalez-Gomez (PI), C. Davies, A. Hendry, T. Gliga, M. McGillion. The effects of social distancing policies on children’s language development, sleep and executive functions.

• UKRI Ideas to Address COVID-19 to H. Nash (PI), P. Clarke, C. Davies, M. Horner. The Impact of Covid-19 on Key Learning and Education (ICKLE)

• As part of the ESRC-funded project Promoting language development via shared reading (2015–2018), I worked on a randomised controlled trial to promote caregiver-child inference-based dialogue during shared book reading and to establish whether an increase in this type of talk can boost children’s inferencing ability.

• My first major ESRC-funded project (2018–2022) focuses on how young children understand and produce adjectives – a common but challenging area of vocabulary development.

Primary investigator (PI)

• Children's experience, understanding, and use of adjectives across the socioeconomic spectrum
• Evaluation of the impact of the Leeds Story Buses on children's reading skills and their home learning environment
• Exploring psycholinguistic eye tracking methodologies and data analytic techniques
• How to promote children's language development using family-based shared book reading
• Speaker identity in metaphor processing

Co-investigator (Co-I)

• Born in Covid Year - Core Lockdown Effects (BICYCLE)
• ManyBabies1: Quantifying sources of variability in infancy research using the infant-directed speech preference

Qualifications

• PhD: Overinformativeness in Referential Communication
• MPhil English and Applied Linguistics
• BA (Hons) Linguistics and Phonetics

Professional memberships

• Experimental Psychology Society
• International Association for the Study of Child Language (IASCL)

Student education

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Research groups and institutes

• Linguistics and Phonetics
• Language acquisition
• Language processing
• Language at Leeds
• Leeds Child Development Unit
• Linguistics and Phonetics
• Linguistics and Translation