2026 Annual Meeting | June 15-16, 2026
Organizing Committee
See the people who help put our conference together!
Conference Chair
César Escobar-Viera MD, PhD is a psychiatrist, health services researcher who holds a master's degree in public health. He is Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh. His mission is to help eliminate mental health disparities in minority youth and young adults. To do this, César utilizes mixed methods and clinical trials for better understanding the potential benefits and risks of communication technologies and the clinical impact of chatbot-delivered interventions to increase social media literacy and access to mental health services for reducing online victimization and youth suicide prevention.
Conference Co-Chair
Caitlin Stamatis, PhD is a clinical psychologist and expert in technology-enabled behavioral health. Dr. Stamatis currently works as Head of Research at Slingshot AI, leading evidence generation on the safety and efficacy of the first foundation model for psychology. She has previously held various clinical research and product strategy positions within digital health and technology companies, including Google, Akili Interactive Labs, and Otsuka. Dr. Stamatis received her BA in psychology from Columbia University, after which she was awarded a Fulbright fellowship. She completed her PhD in clinical psychology, with a quantitative specialization, at the University of Miami, and her residency at Weill Cornell Medicine.
Adrian Aguilera, PhD is the Chancellor’s Professor and Associate Dean for Digital Initiatives in the School of Social Welfare. He also holds appointments in Computational Precision Health at UC Berkeley and the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at UC San Francisco. At UC Berkeley, Dr. Aguilera directs the Digital Health Equity and Access Lab (dHEAL). He is trained as a clinical psychologist and is an expert in cognitive and behavioral approaches to treating depression and anxiety. His research is focused on utilizing mobile phone technologies and data science methods to design, implement and test mental health interventions to address health disparities in low-income and marginalized populations. He partners with community organizations to leverage capacity and conduct research that is relevant to their needs. He has extensive formal training in implementation science, community-based research methods and integrating cultural sensitivity all while developing innovative digital technology-based interventions.
Andrea Graham, PhD is Associate Professor and Chief of the Division of Implementation Science in the Department of Medical Social Sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, where she also is Co-Director of the Center for Behavioral Intervention Technologies (CBITs). Dr. Graham’s program of research focuses on the design, optimization, and implementation of digital mental and behavioral health interventions. She applies human-centered design methods to design digital tools that meet users’ needs and implementation plans that support the integration of digital interventions into practice. She has a particular interest in disentangling core components of digital interventions that improve engagement and effectiveness, as well as collaborating across sectors to accelerate the translation of digital interventions from research into practice.
Candice Biernesser, PhD, LCSW, is Assistant Professor and Director of Digital Interventions in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Dr. Biernesser is a behavioral health scientist and licensed clinical social worker as well as an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and the Director of Digital Interventions at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research interests rest in three areas: adolescent suicide prevention, the study of social media experiences, and the development and testing of digital interventions. Her current line of research focuses on examining ways to understand and mitigate the impact of negative social media experiences, particularly focusing on cybervictimization given its linkage to suicide risk among youth. She is passionate about developing digital interventions to improve the mental health of adolescents from underserved and minoritized communities. She and her team have been integral to the development, testing, and implementation of a range of digital tools from smartphone apps, texting programs, chatbots, and more through funding received from the National Institute of Mental Health and American Society for Suicide Prevention.
Lisa Palko, PharmD is the Executive Director of the Society for Digital Mental Health and serves as a Senior Medical Advisor for Health Systems Innovation and OPEN MINDS. Dr Palko earned her PharmD from the University of Pittsburgh with a specialization in psychiatry and is a passionate advocate for mental health and technology-driven solutions. Dedicated to revolutionizing mental healthcare through digital innovation, her experience in the pharma industry includes serving as the Vice President of Medical Affairs at Akili Interactive, and as a Medical Director for Otsuka Digital Health. With more than two decades working in mental digital health/medicine organizations, she has been invited to advise on several pre-market applications and was instrumental in the development of a military population health tool. She was asked to participate in several speaking engagements demonstrating the use of technology to support the opioid crisis. Dr Palko is committed to bridging the gap between mental health needs and accessible, effective solutions. She has previously worked at UPMC Health Plan and Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic (UPMC). Her experience has resulted in the cultivation of a unique skill set essential for navigating the intersection of mental health and technology.
Eleanor R. Burgess, PhD is a human-centered design expert specializing in health product and workflow insights. Her background includes a Masters in Technology Entrepreneurship and a PhD in Human-Computer Interaction. She has founded two tech startups, and recently published a paper advancing the idea of a "mental health technology kit" -- the selection of technologies (video games, texting and calling with other people, smartwatches, etc.) that a person uses to manage their mental health. She is exploring moving this concept into practice with the University of Arizona and Therapists in Tech communities. At Elevance Health as a Human-Centered Design Senior Strategist she worked on clinical AI workflow projects and other data-focused tooling, uncovering desirability and feasibility insights. Most recently at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as a Lead Service Designer she discovered user insights and used them to accelerate the launch of a data product by 6 months, supporting end-to-end public health information workflows. (LinkedIn)
Jessica Jackson, PhD is a licensed psychologist and the Vice President of Alliance Development at Mental Health America, where she leads high-impact partnerships and cross-sector collaboration to strengthen the nation’s mental health ecosystem. With more than 15 years of experience across startups, hospitals, nonprofits, and the United Nations, she operates at the nexus of equity, innovation, and care delivery, helping organizations build culturally responsive, tech-enabled solutions that reach underserved and high-acuity populations. A former assistant professor of psychiatry, Dr. Jackson brings academic rigor to real-world challenges, grounding her work in research on dismantling barriers to treatment and amplifying lived experience voices in digital mental health. Dr. Jackson was the inaugural Chair of the APA’s Mental Health Technology Advisory Committee and is an appointed member of the FDA’s inaugural Digital Health Advisory Committee. She frequently speaks on neuroscience innovation, digital mental health, and mental health equity, reflecting her enduring commitment to expanding access to evidence-based, culturally grounded care.
Fuji Robledo Yamamato, PhD is a qualitative and design researcher who is dedicated to improving health outcomes through carefully designed technology. She is currently a research scientist at mpathic, an AI company whose mission is to understand and protect people through behavioral science and accurate AI. She holds a PhD in Information Science from the University of Colorado, Boulder and a Master’s in Clinical Social Work from The University of Texas at Austin. Her research centers on deeply understanding users’ technology needs and translating those insights into design recommendations that minimize harm and meaningfully improve health outcomes.
Marisa Perera, PhD is an academic turned clinical product leader specializing in the design and scaling of AI-enabled mental health products for adults, including women navigating reproductive and perinatal transitions. Trained as a clinical psychologist and behavioral data scientist, she helps early- and growth-stage companies turn complex needs into innovative, evidence-based digital solutions with measurable impact. Dr. Perera is known for bridging clinical rigor with real-world usability and is passionate about building technology that respects the nuance, dignity, and complexity of being human.
Sara Sagui Henson, PhD is a health psychologist and clinical research leader with over a decade of experience with high-quality evidence generation, focused on the impact of digital health solutions on equitable access and outcomes. She earned her Ph.D. in Health Psychology from UNC Charlotte and completed an NIH-funded postdoctoral fellowship at UCSF before joining the digital health industry. For more than 5 years at Modern Health her central role has been to design and execute strategic, high-quality clinical research to evaluate and showcase Modern Health's value as a leader in digital mental health solutions.
Tanvi Lakhtakia is a second-year clinical psychology graduate student in the PACT Lab at UVA. Her research aims to develop just-in-time adaptive interventions for anxiety and suicidality, using quantitative methods to develop predictive models of momentary psychological processes and mixed-methods approaches to understand user needs and preferences and implementation barriers. She has been involved with digital mental health research for the past five years and is excited for her second year on the SDMH conference committee.
Tylar Schmitt is the Research Coordinator for the PRIDE iM Lab at the University of Pittsburgh. She manages several research projects, all of which focus on increasing access to evidence-based mental health services for adolescents, particularly those from underserved populations. This is her second year on the SDMH conference committee, and she recently assumed the role of SDMH Communications Lead.