Maya Balakrishnan | MD, MPH

Maya Balakrishnan | MD, MPH

Institution: Baylor College of Medicine
Position: Assistant Professor
Research Interest: Weight loss, dietary change, physical activity, alcohol cessation, behavior change, under-resourced patient populations. 
Research Summary:  My research focuses on behavioral interventions for treatment of chronic liver disease, with a special interest for doing so among ethnic minority and under-resourced patient populations.  I am funded through an NIH-K23 career development award and American College of Gastroenterology Award to develop a weight loss intervention for Mexican and Central American patients with metabolic dysfunction associated fatty liver disease. 
Imogen Bell | PhD

Imogen Bell | PhD

Institution: Orygen, University of Melbourne
Position: Senior Research Fellow
Research Interest: Human-Centered Design, Just-In-Time Adaptive Interventions, Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, Youth Mental Health
Research Summary: I am a Senior Research Fellow and Psychologist based at Orygen, the Centre for Youth Mental Health at the University of Melbourne in Australia. My research focuses on the design, development, evaluation, and implementation of smartphone and virtual reality based interventions for youth mental ill-health. A core focus of my work is on translating research into real-world impact by creating digital interventions that are not only grounded in scientific evidence but also scalable, sustainable, and provide an engaging and high-quality user experience. This requires a translational perspective and multidisciplinary approach which prioritises traditional research methods such as co-design and randomised controlled trials, alongside industry practices in human-centred design, software development, and business strategy.
Lizbeth 'Libby' Benson | PhD

Lizbeth 'Libby' Benson | PhD

Institution: University of Michigan
Position: Assistant Professor
Research Interest: intensive longitudinal data analysis, data visualization, emotion and health behavior dynamics, just-in-time adaptive interventions
Research Summary: I am an Assistant Professor in the Data Science for Dynamic Intervention Decision Making Center (d3c) at the University of Michigan's Survey Research Center and Institute for Social Research. Before moving to Michigan, I completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the TSET Health Promotion Research Center and earned my PhD from the Pennsylvania State University in the department of Human Development and Family Studies. My research program is focused on intensive longitudinal, computational, and machine learning methods for examining temporal dynamics of affective, social and health behavior experiences using ecological momentary assessment and sensor-based data collected from individuals in their daily lives. My goals are to understand how behavioral processes unfold across multiple time-scales and contexts, and how this knowledge can be used to build personalized interventions to facilitate health behavior change. Currently, I am writing a NIH K01 focused on developing and testing mHealth just-in-time personalized data visualizations for smoking cessation.
Alex Bettis | PhD

Alex Bettis | PhD

Institution: Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Position: Assistant Professor
Research Interest: Suicide Prevention, Intervention Science, Mental Health, Emotion Regulation
Research Summary: I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and a licensed clinical psychologist. My research aims to elucidate key mechanisms of interventions for adolescent mental health to improve the prevention and treatment evidence base, and to develop and test accessible, and scalable interventions to increase access to evidence-based care. My program of research includes theoretical and empirical investigations of emotion regulation processes in youth at-risk for suicide, and the development of digital health interventions to support youth and families during high-risk clinical transition periods. One of the central questions in my research is understanding how adolescents manage emotions and distress during periods of major clinical transition (i.e., after discharging from a psychiatric hospitalization or psychiatric emergency department visit). 
Paul Bloom | PhD

Paul Bloom | PhD

Institution: Columbia University Irving Medical Center
Position:  Postdoctoral Research Scientist in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Research Interest: Adolescent depression and sucide, smartphone-based tools for adolescent mental health research, prevention, and treatment
Research Summary: My research seeks to develop methods using both neuroscientific tools and smartphone-based applications that can aid efforts to treat depression and prevent suicide among adolescents.This work aims to use intensive longitudinal methods, including experience sampling, passive smartphone sensing, and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), to understand and improve within-person trajectories in clinical profiles. Specifically, my research interests are centered around studying 1) how novel smartphone-based methods can best be leveraged to detect short-term risk factors for suicide, and (2) how digital and offline interpersonal stress exposures, including peer, family, and discrimination-related stressors, impact short-term risk for suicide in youth.
Jessee Dietch | PhD, DBSM

Jessee Dietch | PhD, DBSM

Institution: Oregon State University
Position: Assistant Professor of Psychology
Research Interest: Sleep Psychology, Sleep Health Assessment, Actigraphy/Wearable Technology, Dissemination and Implementation
Research Summary:  I'm a licensed clinical health psychologist, certified in Behavioral Sleep Medicine. At Oregon State, I direct the Sleep Health Assessment, Intervention, and Dissemination (SHAID) lab. In the SHAID lab, we develop, test, and disseminate sleep psychology interventions for sleep health problems like insomnia and shift work disorder, characterize sleep health in special populations, and evaluate and validate sleep health assessment tools like actigraphy and other wearables. I am currently funded by NHLBI and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine Foundation to conduct two pilot randomized controlled trials of media-augmented behavioral sleep health interventions for night shift nurses. Additionally, I am conducting a Fitbit- and Google Foundation-funded longitudinal study of wearable-assessed sleep health among gender-diverse adolescents initiating gender-affirming hormone therapy, which will inform just-in-time intervention points in future research. I am also a co-investigator on multiple projects funded by the Department of Defense which seek to disseminate behavioral sleep health training to providers on an automated, web-based platform.
Kris L. Dorsey | PhD

Kris L. Dorsey | PhD

Institution: Northeastern University (Boston)
Position: Associate Professor
Research Interest: wearable devices and sensors, soft robotics, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) sensors
Research Summary: My research centers on improving microscale and soft material sensor performance and designing soft sensing and actuator systems for wearable devices. I am particularly interested in designing sensors and actuators for challenges in human health related to peripheral edema.
Beth Dunbar | PhD

Beth Dunbar | PhD

Institution: University of Washington - Digital Initiatives Group
Position: Senior Digital Health Specialist
Research Interest: client-facing technologies, costing interventions, reimagining point of care interventions, and new methods for designing equitable digital health tools
Research Summary: I am a health design researcher and epidemiologist with 15+ years experience optimizing domestic and global health technologies. I am a Senior Digital Health Specialist at the Digital Initiatives Group at I-TECH at the University of Washington and recently finished my PhD in Human Centered Design and Engineering. Current research interests include client-facing technologies, costing interventions, reimagining point of care interventions, and new methods for designing equitable digital health tools. I spent 6 years leading Monitoring, Evaluation, Informatics & Research teams for Partners In Health in both remote Liberia and rural Malawi and spent a couple years with CDC and CSTE working on domestic health and informatics projects. 

Asim H. Gazi | PhD

Asim H. Gazi | PhD

Institution: Harvard University
Position: Postdoctoral Fellow
Research Interest: biobehavioral sensor-informed interventions for mobile health (mHealth), sensor informatics, closed-loop control
Research Summary: I am interested in the models and algorithms that enable mHealth interventions informed by biobehavioral sensor feedback. This encompasses research on sensor informatics, where signals are selected, measured, and mapped from their raw form to actionable states, as well as closed-loop control, where the estimated states are used to form interventions delivered when and how they are needed. I am particularly interested in applications of this technology to the domain of behavioral health. My PhD research at Georgia Tech focused on sensor informatics and was funded by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. My postdoctoral research at Harvard is supported by the Schmidt Science Fellows Program, enabling me to pivot to the domain of sequential decision-making for digital health.
Simon Goldberg | PhD

Simon Goldberg | PhD

Institution: University of Wisconsin-Madison
Position: Associate Professor
Research Interest: psychotherapy, with a specific emphasis on the effects of and mechanisms underlying meditation- and mindfulness-based interventions
Research Summary: I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Counseling Psychology and Core Faculty at the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. I conduct research on psychotherapy, with a specific emphasis on the effects of and mechanisms underlying meditation- and mindfulness-based interventions. I am currently completing a 5-year, NIH-funded K23 award focused on the delivery of meditation training through mobile health technology. I have clinical experience working with military veterans and have conducted research on veteran mental health. I have served on the editorial board for the Journal of Counseling PsychologyPsychotherapy, and Psychotherapy Research. My work has been featured in The New York TimesThe AtlanticTodayCNBCThe Week, and Scientific American.
Lauren Henry | PhD, MS

Lauren Henry | PhD, MS

Institution: National Institute of Mental Health
Position: Postdoctoral Intramural Research Training Award Fellow 
Research Interest: leveraging technology (eg., digital phenotyping, mHealth interventions) to: (1) investigate neural and behavioral mechanisms of risk for psychopathology and (2) develop, evaluate, and implement neuroscience-informed preventive interventions for internalizing and externalizing psychopathology to improve public health
Research Summary: I am a Postdoctoral Intramural Research Training Award Fellow with the Neuroscience and Novel Therapeutics Unit in the Emotion and Development Branch at the National Institute of Mental Health. I received my MS in Psychology and PhD in Clinical Science with a minor in Quantitative Sciences from Vanderbilt University. I completed my Predoctoral Internship with the Charleston Consortium at the Medical University of South Carolina. My research focuses on leveraging technology (e.g., digital phenotyping, mHealth interventions) to: (1) investigate neural and behavioral mechanisms of risk for psychopathology and (2) develop, evaluate, and implement neuroscience-informed preventive interventions for internalizing and externalizing psychopathology to improve public health.
Meelim Kim | PhD

Meelim Kim | PhD

Institution: University of San Diego, California
Position: Postdoctoral Researcher
Research Interest: personalized, just-in-time supported, and effective behavioral interventions
Research Summary: One of my main research concern is this: "How can both passive data (e.g., body sensor data; information collected without the person's involvement) and active data (e.g., ecological momentary assessment data; information collected with the person's involvement) be integrated and used to meaningfully recapitulate the person's status for behavioral change at that moment?" By investigating this question, I believe that I will be able to develop personalized, just-in-time supported, and effective behavioral interventions to support health behavior change. I would like to conceptualize the incentive models more consistently, comprehensively, and dynamically by merging active and passive data from digital devices,  while also taking into account user experiences with technology and the social and therapeutic context. Thus, my next step will be not simply to propose but to test and validate the effective incentive models by demonstrating which operant conditioning components (e.g., hierarchy of the reinforcers, positive reinforcement, reinforcement schedules) of the incentive models positively influence different aspects of motivation and derive the behavior change. 
Dmitry Kireev | PhD

Dmitry Kireev | PhD

Institution: University of Massachusetts Amherst
Position: Assistant Professor
Research Interest: Bioelectronics, Wearables, E-tattoos, 2D Materials, Human-Mahine Interfaces
Research Summary: My research focuses on developing atomically thin bioelectronic devices using 2D materials. The devices include graphene tattoos, implantable neurointerfaces, cardiac implants, biosensors, electrophysiological sensors among tohers. Ultimately, my aspirations extend to laying the groundwork for deciphering the human brain and human body, with the potential to transform and heal it or even contribute to the development of cyborgs.
Kayla Knopp | PhD

Kayla Knopp | PhD

Institution: VA San Diego Healthcare System and University of California San Diego
Position: Research Psychologist (VA) and Assistant Adjunct Professor (UCSD)
Research Interests: Interpersonal Relationships, Technology-Supported Interventions, Psychedelic Therapies, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Dyadic Data Analysis
Research Summary:
My research focuses on how we can help people improve their intimate relationships to improve their health, mental health, and well-being. My projects focus on improving both the effectiveness and accessibility of evidence-based couple therapy and other relationship interventions. My current VA-funded Career Development Award is a clinical trial testing the effectiveness of OurRelationship, an online relationship program, for veterans at VA San Diego and their intimate partners. I am also working on projects testing how we can use psychedelics and other pharmacological agents (e.g., MDMA, oxytocin) to enhance couple-based treatment for PTSD.
Jisook Ko | PhD, RN

Jisook Ko | PhD, RN

Institution:  UT Health San Antonio
Position: Assistant Professor
Research Interest: digital self-monitoring using wearable devices, voice-assisted smart speaker, Precision nutrition, chronic disease self-management
Research Summary: My research is focused on advancing mHealth methodologies, specifically by integrating wearable devices and voice-assisted smart speakers. The aim of research is to develop and implement culturally-tailored approaches for improving adherence and maintainance to heathy eating among ethnic minority populations with chronic diseases by leveraging mHealth technologies. The emphasis is on providing personalized nutrition interventions to address the unique needs and preferences of these communities.
Xin Yao Lin | PhD

Xin Yao Lin | PhD

Institution: Weill Cornell Medicine
Position: T32 Postdoctoral Fellow
Research Interest: Digital interventions, technology and aging, social support, health and health behavior, caregiving
Research Summary: My research focuses on technology use, social relationships/support, health/health behavior, and well-being in adult development, aging, and caregiving using quantitative and qualitative methods. My dissertation, funded by sources including the National Institute on Aging's Boston Roybal Center, investigated the relationship between social technology use, social support, physical activity, and well-being. I aim to conduct longitudinal intervention studies to improve health and utilize technology for social connectedness among diverse older adults and their caregivers.
Preeti Manavalan | MD, MSc

Preeti Manavalan | MD, MSc

Institution: University of Florida
Position: Assistant Professor of Medicine
Research Interest: HIV, HIV-related comorbidities, mhealth, implementation science
Research Summary: I am a board-certified infectious diseases physician and clinical investigator with a focus on improving outcomes in people living with HIV. I am interested in developing, implementing and evaluating novel and scalable interventions that contribute to ending the HIV epidemic in underserved populations domestically and globally.
Ellen W. McGinnis | PhD

Ellen W. McGinnis | PhD

Institution: Clinical Psychology Wake Forest University School of Medicine
Position: Assistant Professor of Social Sciences and Health Policy Mental Health
Research Interest: Wearable Devices, Early Childhood, Behavior Change, Anxiety
Research Summary: My research is focused on developing digital health tools to improve mental health assessment and intervention. I am engaged in mHealth projects developing smartphone apps with correspondig wearable sensors to identify digital phenotypes of mental health diagnoses in early childhood; to detect stressful events and provide personalized recommendations for wellness activities in young adults, and to predict and intervene with biofeedback in panic attacks in adulthood.
Jonah Meyerhoff | PhD

Jonah Meyerhoff | PhD

Institution: Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Center for Behavioral Intervention Technologies
Position: Research Assistant Professor
Research Interest: Suicide prevention, recurrent depression, cognitive behavioral interventions, digital mental health, user-centered design
Research Summary: My program of research focuses on increasing access to suicide prevention care through the design and evaluation of technology-based preventive interventions. I incorporate user-centered design principles into intervention development and prioritize partnerships with individuals with lived experience to better understand the needs and preferences of individuals accessing suicide-specific care. I have a background in intervention research for affective disorders with a specific emphasis on cognitive behavioral interventions for recurrent depressive disorders.
Xiaomin Ouyang | PhD

Xiaomin Ouyang | PhD

Institution: University of California, Los Angeles
Position: Postdoctoral Scholar Research
Research Interest: mobile health, cyber-physical systems, machine learning, digital biomarkers, Alzheimer's Disease
Research Summary: My research interest is building AI-powered mobile health systems for personalized and privacy-preserving health monitoring and management in natural living environments. My first research thrust is to develop efficient hardware sensor systems that can be rapidly deployed in real-world home environments for longitudinal health monitoring. I have extensive experience in building and deploying real-world systems that leverage AI and multi-modal sensor devices for Alzheimer's Disease monitoring in a clinical trial. My second research thrust is to design machine learning systems for tackling real-world challenges in mobile health systems, including privacy concerns, limited data labels and resources, sensor variance, and scalability. By addressing these challenges, my research seeks to detect digital biomarkers for personalized and private health monitoring and intervention.
Ranjita Poudel | PhD

Ranjita Poudel | PhD

Institution: Moffitt Cancer Center
Position: Applied Post-Doctoral Fellow
Research Interest: mHealth, mindfulness intervention, cancer
Research Summary: Tailoring mindfulness and mHealth interventions for the treatment and prevention of cancer.  I am currently involved in projects examining the efficacy of mindfulness in managing stress among cancer caregivers and the utility of mHealth to aid smoking cessation.
Violeta J. Rodriguez | PhD, MSEd

Violeta J. Rodriguez | PhD, MSEd

Institution: University of Illinois Urbana Champaign
Position: Assistant Professor
Research Interest: Parenting, Family Dynamics, Health Disparities, Marginalized Populations, Digital Health Assessments and Interventions
Research Summary: My research revolves around three primary objectives: 1) understanding parenting and family dynamics; 2) advancing assessment methods to measure parenting and family dynamics in racial and ethnic minorities; and 3) translating  evidence-based strategies and interventions to racial and ethnic minority adolescents and young adults, with a focus on promoting health equity. By investigating the feasibility and efficacy of mHealth tools in capturing nuanced aspects of parenting and family interactions, I hope to bridge the gap between traditional assessment methods and the dynamic, real-world context in which families. Ultimately, I hope to translate these findings into tailored mHealth interventions that can provide families with timely and personalized support, ultimately contributing to improved child and family well-being.
Meghan Romanelli | PhD, LCSW

Meghan Romanelli | PhD, LCSW

Institution: University of Washington, School of Social Work
Position: Assistant Professor
Research Interest: mental health services research; engagement; digital mental health; LGBTQ+ mental health disparities
Research Summary: My research has focused on understanding and addressing the multisystemic factors that lead to mental health disparities among sexual and gender minority populations, with a focus on the role of service access and treatment engagement. I am funded by a K01 from NIMH to optimize engagement in digital mental health services among sexual and gender minority consumers. I am also interested in designing and building tailored resources through human-centered design approaches.
Koustuv Saha | PhD

Koustuv Saha | PhD

Institution: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Position: Assistant Professor
Research Interest: Social Computing, Computational Social Science, Human-centered Machine Learning, Responsible AI
Research Summary: My research spans the interdisciplinary areas of computational social science, social computing, and fairness, accountability, transparency, and ethics in AI (FATE). By complementing multimodal sensing data with social media, I adopt methods from machine learning, statistics, natural language, and causal inference analysis to examine wellbeing. A stream of my research focuses on wellbeing in situated contexts, such as college campuses and workplaces.I am interested in the in-practice utility and ecological validity of sensing technologies. Because these technologies can impact our lives in unintended ways, I critically reflect and interrogate the necessity, benefits, and harms of these technologies. This enables rethinking the responsible design, development, and deployment of these technologies (if at all).
Roman Shrestha | PhD, MPH

Roman Shrestha | PhD, MPH

Institution: University of Connecticut
Position: Assistant Professor
Research Interest: mHealth, HIV, substance use, mental health, global health
Research Summary:  My research broadly focuses on health disparities in sexual and gender minority (SGM) communities, particularly in the areas of HIV, substance use, and mental health. I have a keen focus on utilizing mobile health (mHealth) technology to extend the scope of evidence-based interventions aimed at addressing the unique challenges SGM individuals face. Presently, I am creating a just-in-time-adaptive intervention (JITAI) to enhance HIV prevention and address chemsex-related harm reduction among men who have sex with men engaged in chemsex.

Petr Slovak | PhD

Petr Slovak | PhD

Institution: Kings College London (and visiting senior researcher at University of Oxford)
Position: Associate Professor
Research Interest: Human-Computer Interaction, Human-Centered Design, Mental Health, Digital interventions
Research Summary: I research how user-centred design can be combined with evidence-based psychology to lead to novel technology-enabled intervention models. My group's work specifically focuses on core transdiagnostic factors (such as emotion regulation and parenting), and collaborations across preventative and clinical domains. Together with our collaborators, we aim to span the full breadth of envision, designing, developing and formally testing innovative interventions -- often moving from early needs-finding qualitative work to optimisation or Randomised Control Trials within a single long-term project.
Ariel Smith | PhD, BSN, RN

Ariel Smith | PhD, BSN, RN

Institution: University of Illinois Chicago, College of Nursing
Position: Registered Nurse and Assistant Professor
Research Interest: violence and suicide prevention among minority youth
Research Summary: My program of research focuses on violence and suicide prevention among minority youth.  A primary objective of my work is to develop digital tools to reduce victimization and negative mental health outcomes among diverse populations of high-risk adolescents (i.e., sexual, gender, racial/ethnic minorities). I've collaborated with a multidisciplinary research team as a Project Director for an NIH-funded study examining the impact of microaggressions on the mental and physical health of bisexual populations. I've also been involved in the development and piloting of mentorship programs (i.e., Urban Health Mentorship Program, Strategies for Increasing Success in Nursing) to equip underrepresented minority students with the knowledge and skills to pursue and persist through their nursing education journeys.
Irene Tung | PhD

Irene Tung | PhD

Institution: California State University, Dominguez Hills
Position: Assistant Professor of Psychology
Research Interest: Mental Health Equity; Prenatal Stress/Early Life Stress; Resilience and Prevention; Ecological Momentary Assessment; Just-In-Time Adaptive Interventions
Research Summary:  My research examines the impact of early stress exposure on the development and transmission of mental health problems across generations. I am particularly interested in using mHealth technology to elucidate how exposure to stress and support during sensitive periods like pregnancy and early childhood shapes individuals' responses to stress across the lifespan. I am currently directing two mHealth studies funded by a NIMH K01 Early Career Award and an APF Visionary Grant; we are leveraging wearable biosensors and smartphone-based EMA to identify daily resilience-promoting factors that buffer the impact of prenatal stress on maternal stress physiology and infant outcomes. The goal of this research is to inform the development of scalable, just-in-time adaptive preventative interventions that can be delivered during pregnancy and early childhood to promote mental health equity among families living with chronic systemic stressors.
Xuhai 'Orson' Xu | PhD

Xuhai 'Orson' Xu | PhD

Institution: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Position: Postdoctoral Researcher
Research Interest: HCI for Health, behavior modeling & intervention
Research Summary: Drawing from human-computer interaction, ubiquitous computing, applied AI/ML, and health, I develop deployable behavior modeling algorithms to monitor various health and well-being conditions. Leveraging these models, I further design and deploy intelligent intervention & interaction techniques that help achieve health and well-being goals.
Chenhan Xu | PhD

Chenhan Xu | PhD

Institution: North Carolina State University
Position: Assistant Professor
Research Interest: Mobile Computing, Smart Health
Research Summary:  I am an Assistant Professor at the Department of Computer Science at the North Carolina State University. My research focuses on the convergence of the Internet of Things (IoT), Physiological Science, and Smart Health. My group and I explore advanced embedded sensing and computing systems to enable high-impact real-world IoT applications. The research involves pioneering advancements in sensing and computing system paradigm, data analytics, signal processing, algorithm, and hardware innovations for the Internet of Human-Centric Things.