Cat Hicks is a psychologist for the humans in tech who designs science and strategy for technical teams that’s shaped software practice around the world. She’s the founder and principal scientist at Catharsis Consulting, a scientific consultancy that both helps organizations transform with human-centered evidence and publishes open empirical science with thousands of developers that has influenced organizational practice worldwide. Cat is the author of The Psychology of Software Teams (CRC Press, 2026), an international keynote speaker, and holds a Ph.D. in Quantitative Experimental Psychology from UC San Diego. She was formerly the VP of Research at Pluralsight, the founder of the Developer Success Lab, and has led large-scale research on behavior change for organizations such as Google and Khan Academy. She writes a newsletter about technology, social science, research evidence and human outcomes at Fight for the Human.