Education
Valkenburg received her Master of Science (1992, cum laude) and Doctor of Philosophy (1995, cum laude) from Leiden University, the Netherlands.
Valkenburg received her Master of Science (1992, cum laude) and Doctor of Philosophy (1995, cum laude) from Leiden University, the Netherlands.
She is a fellow of the International Communication Association. In 2006, she was recognized as the most productive communication scientist in Europe. She has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles, 5 solo-authored books, and 35 book chapters.
In 2010 she received an Advanced Investigator grant (25 million euro) from the European Research Council, which is the highest European scientific recognition.
In 2011, she was awarded the Spinoza Prize. The winners of this prize receive a small statue of Baruch Spinoza and 2.5 million euro to spend on research of their own choice.
In 2009, researchers in initiated a well-evaluated international master program Youth and Media. Valkenburg’s research interests include the cognitive, emotional, and social effects of media and technologies on children and adolescents.
Her work has focused on all kinds of media contents and technologies, including advertising, pornography, media violence, and social media.
Based on dozens of empirical studies she has developed several models to understand why media have small effects on some children but large and long-lasting effects on other children, which children are particularly susceptible to media effects, and how negative media effects can be minimized or counteracted.
Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences]
Valkenburg is associate editor of Human Communication Research and a member of the editorial boards of most other journals in her field