Patricia Greenfield received her Ph. D. from Harvard University and is currently Professor of Psychology at UCLA, where she is a member of the developmental group and directs the Children's Digital Media Center of Los Angeles.
Her central theoretical and research interest is in the relationship between culture and human development. She is a past recipient of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Award for Behavioral Science Research, and has received teaching awards from UCLA and the American Psychological Association. She is the recipient of the 2010 American Psychological Association Urie Bronfenbrenner Award for lifetime contribution to Developmental Psychology in the service of science and society. She has held fellowships at the Bunting Institute, Radcliffe College, the School of American Research, Santa Fe, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford.
Her books include Mind and Media: The Effects of Television, Video Games, and Computers (Harvard, 1984), which has been translated into nine languages. In the 90s she coedited (with R.R. Cocking) Interacting with Video (Elsevier, 1996) and Cross-Cultural Roots of Minority Child Development (Erlbaum, 1994). She has done field research on child development, social change, and weaving apprenticeship in Chiapas, Mexico since 1969. This cumulative work is presented in a book entitled Weaving Generations Together (SAR Press, 2004). A project in Los Angeles has investigated how cultural values influence relationships on multiethnic high school sports teams. Another project entitled "Bridging Cultures" utilizes research on cross-cultural value conflict between Latino immigrant families and the schools as the basis of teacher, parent and student education.