Hi there, I’m Liz!

Clinical product lead, researcher, and licensed psychologist

I help teams develop user-friendly, evidence-based content, rigorously measure psychological phenomena, understand the experiences of young people on apps and the internet, and make digital tools safe.

Areas of Expertise

How the internet, apps, and devices can help and harm us

I believe that technology is a double-edged sword. I’ve studied the downsides, like digital stress and worries about others’ perceptions on social media. However, I truly believe in the power of online social support, my major area of content expertise, and digital mental health tools. These days, I take the best from psych science and practice and turn it into bite-sized content and digital experiences that help people with their mental health and wellness.

Balancing insights from multiple directions

I work both top-down, from research, theory, and best clinical practice, and bottom-up, from what patients, research participants, and users tell me. I’m adept with both quantitative datasets and focus group findings, and I love adapting established clinical modalities for each patient joining me in the therapy or assessment room.

Anxiety and depression in young people

I’ve been passionate about internalizing disorders in youth for a long time. I’ve worked with hundreds of young people on the uncomfortable symptoms and thoughts that come with anxiety, depression, and self-injurious thoughts and behaviors. I am grateful to every patient and research participant who have shared vulnerably with me and helped me discern which techniques actually work for teens.

My Approach

  • Ask excellent questions

    Select or create valid measures, choose efficient and clear interview questions

  • Make sound inferences

    Interpret quantitative and qualitative data through years of specialized experience

  • Proceed purposefully

    Make decisions informed by clinical judgment, empathy, and digital mental health strategy

Training and Experience

  • WELL Women Health: Career Accelerator Cohort Member

    • Developed and pitched funding and strategy proposal for app development collaboration with Dr. Casey Calhoun at UNC Chapel Hill

    ChoosingTherapy.com: Clinical Product Lead

    • Built clinical architecture, wrote content, and designed exercises for app-based psychoeducation courses on stress, burnout, depression, and anxiety

    • Created and edited 135+ clinically rigorous, SEO-optimized psychoeducation worksheets, growing daily hits on worksheets webpage from 0 to 7500+

    Headspace: Postdoctoral Fellow

    • Consulted with product and content on evidence-based content and user retention for anxiety, depression, and insomnia courses

  • Postgraduate

    • Headspace: Research Consultant

      • Co-led employee burnout research, providing quantitative expertise. Minimized burden for busy therapist by reducing survey lengths but maintaining high standard of reliability and validity. Interpreted and presented findings to C-suite

    • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: Postdoctoral Research Fellow

      • Safety lead for NIH-funded study of self-injurious thoughts and behaviors (SITBs) among teen girls. Developed remote monitoring strategy and intervened when participants reported SITBs

      • Trained study staff and oversaw assessment of psychopathology and SITBs

    • Content expertise in online social support; youth internet, social media, and app use; digital stress; internalizing disorders; self-injurious thoughts and behaviors (SITBs). You can find my Google Scholar profile here

    • See my reviews of recent tech x psych literature on my blog, Tech Research Highlights

    Graduate School, Vanderbilt University

    • Led creation of the most-cited English language measure of online social support, the Online Social Support Scale (OSSS)

    • Graduate concentration in quantitative methods, including multiple regression, factor analysis, structural equation modeling, and multilevel modeling

    • Specialized training in autism assessment for high-masking, late-diagnosed adults

    • Specialized experience with youth psychiatric inpatients at risk of suicide and self-harm including family therapy and safety planning

    • Assessment and therapy experience in telehealth, private practice, community mental health, group, and school settings

    • Training and experience in:

      • broad approaches including cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) skills, acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), mindfulness

      • exposure and response prevention (ERP) for OCD

      • trauma approaches including cognitive processing therapy (CPT), trauma-focused CBT (TF-CBT), the attachment, self-regulation, and competency (ARC) framework

      • parent-child interaction therapy (PCIT), collaborative problem-solving (CPS), and parent behavior modification

Content Portfolio*
Google Scholar
Research Blog
LinkedIn

*Walk-through of wireframes for interactive app experiences may be possible on request