Kath is an Australian Research Council Centre (ARC) Future Fellow, leading the 'Digital and data literacies for sexual health policy and practice reseach project' (2022-2026). Her past projects have investigated young people’s practices of digital self-representation, and the role of user-generated media (including social networking platforms and dating apps) in young people’s formal and informal sexual learning, safety and wellbeing practices.
She is also a Chief Investigator on the Swedish/Australian collaboration 'Digital sexual health: Designing for safety, pleasure and wellbeing in LGBTQ+ communities' (2022-2025), with Professor Jenny Sundén (Södertörn University) and Dr Zahra Stardust (QUT).
In 2021-2022, Kath led the evaluation and research arm of the Crushed But Okay project, a collaboration with the Alannah & Madeline Foundation, funded by the Office of the eSafety Commissioner. The research team (which included Professor Anthony McCosker, Associate Professor Dan Golding, Dr Angus Veitch, Dr Alexia Maddox, and Swinburne PhD candidate Joanna Williams) received a Swinburne Vice-Chancellor's Award for Research Excellence in 2022.
Kath is an Associate Investigator in the Swinburne Node of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (ADMS). Her ADMS projects focus on the development data capability and capacity in not-for-profit organisations, and data ethics and speculative design justice in the field of sextech.
Recent co-authored books include: 'Everyday Data Cultures' (with Jean Burgess, Anthony McCosker and Rowan Wilken, Polity 2022) and 'Data for Social Good: Non-Profit Sector Data Projects' (with Jane Farmer, Anthony McCosker and Amir Aryani, Palgrave Macmillan 2023).