Sumudu Mallawaarachchi is a Research Fellow at the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child and a Lecturer in the School of Education. Her research investigates the intersection between child development and digital media interactions drawing on interdisciplinary approaches from developmental psychology, education and human-computer interaction. She is particularly interested in the relationships between children’s digital technology use, engagement, design of digital environments and child developmental outcomes including children’s self-regulation and other psychosocial outcomes. She conducts a mixed-methods program of research including meta-analyses, longitudinal data analyses, acute experiments, and content analyses of digital environments.

As an Early Career Researcher, she has a strong track record of scolarly outputs, including highly-cited papers in top journals involving meta-analyses (eg, in JAMA Pediatrics, IF = 18, #1 Pediatrics journal in the world), content analyses (eg, in Computers in Human Behavior, IF=8.9, rank 1/636 Humanities) on children’s digital engagement and its intersection with child development and outcomes. She has engaged with national mainstream media outlets (print, radio and television), the Conversation and SBS Learn to contribute to debates around digital childhoods. She has also won awards for her research impact (i.e., Emerging Scholar Award 2024, Centre HDR Research Impact Award 2023), publications (i.e., Deakin School of Psychology Award for Best HDR Publication 2022) as well as science communication skills (i.e., Deakin University 3MT Winner 2022, Centre 3MT Winner 2023) in the field.