A Bermudian digital researcher has convened an international forum to explore online health for young people.

The Youth Digital Wellness Summit will air virtually from Berlin, Germany this Thursday and next Monday.

The panel has been convened by Katie Davis, an associate professor and PhD programme chairwoman at the Information School of the University of Washington in Seattle.

Dr Davis will lead the summit on adolescent digital wellness with Petr Slovak, a lecturer at King's College London in London.

Sponsored by the University of Washington's Global Innovation Fund, it will combine expertise from universities in the US, Canada, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Colombia.

Dr Davis is known globally for her work on digital media and young people.

The more than two dozen participants hail from disciplines ranging from psychology and communication, to education and human-computer education.

Dr Davis said they would collaborate on a white paper after the two-day forum.

She added: “They will use insights from session discussions as well as interviews we conducted last summer and fall with researchers.

“Our ultimate objective is to outline an agenda for international, cross-disciplinary research focused on adolescent digital wellness.

“The knowledge generated from this work is critical for the design of new technologies, as well as educational strategies and policies, that support positive youth development in the digital era.”

Dr Davis, a founding member and co-director of the University of Washington’s Digital Youth Lab, is a visiting research scientist in the Human Computer Interaction Lab at the Hasso Plattner Institute of the University of Potsdam in Germany.

Her work bridges the fields of human development, human-computer interaction, and the learning sciences.