Search
Training the Next Generation
2027 mHealth
Institute Program
In-person Institute: June 20–24, 2027, UCLA Luskin Conference Center
Phase 1: Recruitment & Selection
8:00 am - 10:00 am PT
Applications Open
Monday, October 19, 2026
Application Deadline
Friday, January 15, 2027 – 11:59 PM ET
Faculty Review Period
January 27 – February 26, 2027
Selection Committee Review & Finalization
March 1 – 5, 2027
Notification of Acceptance
Tuesday, March 9, 2027
Scholar Acceptance Deadline
Friday, March 19, 2027
Wait-List & Cohort Finalization
Friday, March 20 – 25, 2027
Phase 2: The Virtual Core
Scholar Onboarding & Asynchronous Orientation
8:00 am - 10:00 am PT
Onboarding & Asynchronous Orientation
8:00 am - 9:30 am PT
Scholar Introductions, Institute Workflow, and Expected Outcomes
Vivek Shetty – UCLA
Opening session for the institute. Establishes cohort identity through structured self-introductions (background, institution, capstone focus) to seed peer-learning and team formation. Explicit walkthrough of the five-phase structure, capstone deliverables, and scholar workflow from virtual sessions through in-person clinics to August deadline. Scholars leave with a concrete mental map connecting each subsequent session to their project development arc.
9:30 am - 10:00 am PT
Asynchronous
Implementable DTx: A Conceptual Framework for Capstone Development
Eric Hekler – UC San Diego
Framework installation session. Introduces the “Implementable DTx” model as the shared conceptual scaffold for all content sessions and capstone projects. Frames how design decisions interact with behavior-change logic, context, equity, and evidence. Scholars receive a one-page framework reference to carry through the program — the evaluative lens for everything that follows.
Asynchronous Learning Blocks
Asynchronous Learning
Core Didactic Sessions
8:00 am - 12:15 pm PT
8:00 am - 9:00 am PT
Navigating the Gap: Where mHealth Meets Real-World Implementation Challenges
Opening session. Establishes why mHealth interventions fail to translate and frames the translational problem space scholars will work within all day.
9:00 am - 10:00 am PT
mHealth Implementation Roadmap: Developing, Deploying, and Evaluating Implementation Strategies
10:15 am - 11:15 am PT
Adaptive Interventions in Digital Health: Common Misconceptions and New Opportunities
11:15 am - 12:15 pm PT
Building and Deploying Adaptive Behavioral Interventions: Options and Considerations
8:00 am - 12:15 pm PT
8:00 am - 9:00 am PT
Navigating the Gap: Where mHealth Meets Real-World Implementation Challenges
Opening session. Establishes why mHealth interventions fail to translate and frames the translational problem space scholars will work within all day.
9:00 am - 10:00 am PT
mHealth Implementation Roadmap: Developing, Deploying, and Evaluating Implementation Strategies
10:15 am - 11:15 am PT
Adaptive Interventions in Digital Health: Common Misconceptions and New Opportunities
11:15 am - 12:15 pm PT
Building and Deploying Adaptive Behavioral Interventions: Options and Considerations
Phase 3: Team Science (The Sandboxes)
Mentored Sandboxes
8:00 am - 11:00 am PT
Sandbox 1: Setting the Foundation
Purpose: Team formation and problem selection
Process:
- Reintroduce yourselves — share your expertise, methods, and mHealth interests
- Establish team norms for communication and decision-making
- Select a health challenge that unites and excites your group
- Map the problem space: relevant technologies, research gaps, implementation barriers
- Assign working roles and inventory team strengths
Outcome: Established team norms, selected health challenge, preliminary problem map
Between Sessions
Continue asynchronous collaboration. Arrive at the in-person institute with a well-developed Capstone Proposal draft ready for iteration and expert critique.
8:00 am - 11:00 am PT
Team Development Period
Purpose:
Process:
Outcome:
Between Sessions
Continue asynchronous collaboration. Arrive at the in-person institute with a well-developed Capstone Proposal draft ready for iteration and expert critique.
8:00 am - 11:00 am PT
Sandbox 2: Deepening the Work
Purpose: Problem refinement and solution conceptualization
Process:
- Explore nuances of your health issue — challenge assumptions, surface disagreements
- Outline possible intervention strategies using the “Implementable DTx” framework
- Integrate insights from didactic sessions (implementation science, JITAI, AI/sensing, regulatory)
- Identify questions for expert feedback at the in-person institute
Outcome: Clear problem statement, emerging solution framework, draft-ready foundation
Between Sessions
Continue asynchronous collaboration. Arrive at the in-person institute with a well-developed Capstone Proposal draft ready for iteration and expert critique.
8:00 am - 11:00 am PT
Final Team Refinement & Faculty Consultation
Purpose:
Process:
Outcome:
Between Sessions
Continue asynchronous collaboration. Arrive at the in-person institute with a well-developed Capstone Proposal draft ready for iteration and expert critique.
8:00 am - 11:00 am PT
Pre-Institute Preparations
Purpose:
Process:
Outcome:
Between Sessions
Continue asynchronous collaboration. Arrive at the in-person institute with a well-developed Capstone Proposal draft ready for iteration and expert critique.
Phase 4: In-Person Institute @ UCLA
mHealth Training Institute
2027 mHealth Training Institute - Registration / Reception
2:00 pm - 6:00 pm PT
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm PT
Opening Reception & Dinner
Luskin Center’s Plateia Restaurant
2027 mHealth Training Institute - Day 1
8:00 am - 4:00 pm PT
Full Day Session
8:00 am - 10:00 am PT
Developing Smarter mHealth Tools: Insights into mHealth Technology Design and Implementation
Developing Smarter mHealth Tools: Insights into mHealth Technology Design and Implementation
10:15 am - 12:30 pm PT
Team Science Session (mentored)
12:30 pm - 1:30 pm PT
Lunch Break
1:30 pm - 1:45 pm PT
Team Report Backs on Capstone Progress
1:45 pm - 4:00 pm PT
Team Science Session
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm PT
Networking Dinner Mixer (off site)
Connect with Scholars, Faculty, & Special Guests
2027 mHealth Training Institute - Day 2
8:00 am - 4:00 pm PT
Full Day Session & Consultation Clinics
8:00 am - 8:30 am PT
Team Reports: Capstone Project Summaries (5 mins each)
8:30 am - 10:00 am PT
Choice Architecture 2.0: Designing mHealth Interventions That Anticipate How Users Think
Craig Fox – UCLA
Every mHealth app, notification, and default setting is a choice environment—and most designers get it wrong. They treat users as passive targets of behavioral nudges, missing a critical insight: people actively interpret design choices, infer what those choices signal about expectations, and sometimes resist accordingly. In this opening lecture, Craig Fox introduces Choice Architecture 2.0, a framework that reconceptualizes mHealth design as an implicit conversation between intervention and user. Drawing on landmark trials that reshaped antibiotic prescribing, opioid safety, and vaccination uptake across hundreds of thousands of patients, Fox reveals when nudges work, when they backfire, and why anticipating user interpretation is the difference between interventions that stick and those that fail. Scholars will leave with a design lens they can apply to every session that follows—and carry directly into their capstone projects.
10:15 am - 12:30 pm PT
Team Science Session (mentored)
12:30 pm - 2:00 pm PT
Working Lunch | Consultation Clinic
Consultation Clinics (by signup)
Working lunch format allows scholars to receive targeted faculty feedback on capstone projects. Sign up for one track based on primary development need. Clinics run concurrent with lunch—bring your questions and your plate.
Experimental Design/Methodology
Consultation Clinic Tracks
Behavioral Interventions
Behavioral Interventions
Digital Platforms for JITAI's
Digital Platforms for JITAI's
Digital Technologies
Digital Technologies
2:00 pm - 4:00 pm PT
Team Science Session
2027 mHealth Training Institute - Day 3
8:00 am - 5:00 pm PT
Full Day Session, Team Development, & Faculty Consultations
8:00 am - 9:00 am PT
Designing for the Margins: Why Health Equity Must Be Built Into mHealth—Not Bolted On
9:00 am - 10:00 am PT
The Science of Timing: Micro-Randomized Trials and the Optimization of Just-in-Time Interventions
The promise of just-in-time adaptive interventions is simple: deliver the right support, at the right moment, in the right context. The science of fulfilling that promise is not. How do you know which intervention components work? When do they work best? For whom? And how do effects change over time? Predrag Klasnja— co-developer of the micro-randomized trial (MRT) methodology—has pioneered experimental designs that answer these questions with causal rigor. In this session, Klasnja draws on HeartSteps and other landmark studies to show how MRTs enable researchers to model time-varying treatment effects, identify contextual moderators, and iteratively optimize JITAI decision rules. Scholars will learn when to use MRTs versus traditional RCTs, how to specify proximal outcomes, and how to translate findings into adaptive algorithms that improve with use. This is the methodological bridge between JITAI theory (Nahum-Shani, Day 1) and real-world deployment.
10:15 am - 12:00 pm PT
Team Science Session (mentored)
1:00 pm - 5:00 pm PT
Capstone Preparation
Presentation development and practice
2027 mHealth Training Institute - Day 4
8:00 am - 12:30~ pm PT
Capstone Presentations & Graduation Lunch
8:00 am - 9:15 am PT
Capstone Presentations by Teams
Team pitches (10 min) + Faculty feedback (5 min)
Two days of intensive learning. Hours of team collaboration. Now it all comes down to this. Each team steps into the spotlight to pitch their mHealth intervention—10 minutes on the clock, the full cohort watching, and a faculty panel ready to probe. Then 5 minutes of live feedback: direct, constructive, and designed to make your proposal stronger.
This isn’t a recitation. It’s a performance of ideas under pressure—clarity of thought, confidence in delivery, and the visible chemistry of a team that built something together. Faculty will score across eight dimensions, from problem framing to methodological rigor to real-world feasibility. But the deeper test is simpler: Can you convince a room full of experts that your intervention deserves to exist?
Expect tough questions. Expect recognition for what lands. And expect to walk away with the sharpest feedback you’ll receive before the September deadline. Bring your best work, your thickest skin, and your readiness to celebrate what this cohort has accomplished.
9:30 am - 10:15 am PT
Building an Antifragile Career: Adapting and Thriving Amid Volatility and AI
10:15 am - 11:15 am PT
The Conversations We Rarely Have!
11:15 am - 12:30 pm PT
Graduation Lunch
Certificate presentation and closing celebration
