UConn Center for mHealth and Social Media

Dr. Lorien Abroms is a behavioral scientist and professor in the Department of Prevention and Community Health at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health. She also serves as the Co-director of GW’s Bright Institute and Public Health & Governance Cluster Lead at GW’s Institute for Data Democracy and Politics.

Dr. Abroms' career focuses on the intersection of digital communication technologies and health promotion. She has developed and evaluated mobile apps and text messaging programs for smoking cessation, including for special populations such as pregnant women and HIV+ individuals, and in several countries such as Vietnam, India and Israel. Her programs have been widely disseminated with Text2Quit offered through US quitlines and SmokefreeMom offered through the US National Cancer Institute’s Smokefree.gov. Her recent research is focused on health promotion on social media, as well as promoting vaccine uptake and countering vaccine misinformation on social media.

Y. Alicia Hong, PhD, Professor, Department of Health Administration and Policy, College of Public Health, George Mason University

Dr. Y. Alicia Hong’s current research interests include: 1) Implementation science of digitalization of evidence-based programs for wider dissemination in underserved populations, 2) personalized behavioral intervention, and 3) patient engagement and patient-provider communication in eHealth settings.

Dr. Hong has served as PI, Co-PI, or sub-PI in more than 20 large research projects funded by HHS-OMH, NIH, CDC, HRSA, and private foundations. She has published 100+ peer-reviewed journal articles, and served in grant review panels for NIH, NSF, HRSA, and international organizations. Hong has taught graduate courses on social determinants of health, program planning and evaluation, research methods, mHealth, behavioral intervention, and comparative global health systems.

David Buller, PhD, Senior Scientist and Director of Research, Klein Buendel, Inc.

Dr. David Buller is a Senior Scientist and Director of Research at Klein Buendel. After earning his PhD from Michigan State University, he was hired as an Assistant Professor for Texas Tech University's Department of Speech Communication. In 1986, he joined the faculty in the Department of Communication at the University of Arizona where he was promoted from Assistant to Associate to Professor of Communication. In 1997, he moved to Colorado to become a Senior Scientist at AMC Cancer Research Center (1997-2002) and later the Harold Simmons Senior Scientist for Health Communication at the Cooper Institute (2002-2005). Dave joined Klein Buendel in 2005. Dave's health communication research focuses on occupational, school, and community interventions to increase sun protection, market-place efforts to control access to alcohol and cannabis, and strategies to improve dietary behavior and physical activity and reduce the use of tobacco and alcohol, using interpersonal, media, and technology-based interventions.

Eleni Linos MD, MPH, DrPH, Professor of Dermatology and Epidemiology, Stanford University

Julianne Holt-Lunstad, Ph.D. is a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University, where she was recently named the Martin B Hickman Outstanding Scholar and is also the director of the social neuroscience lab. She also has an adjunct professorship at Iverson Health Innovation Research Institute Swinburne University of Technology; Melbourne, Australia; and the founding Scientific Chair for the US Coalition to End Social Isolation and Loneliness and the Foundation for Social Connection.

Dr. Holt-Lunstad’s research is focused on the long-term health effects of social connection and her work has been seminal in the recognition of social isolation and loneliness as risk factors for early mortality. Her program of research takes an interdisciplinary and multi-level approach to understanding the associations between social relationships and long-term health outcomes, factors that may moderate the association, and the biological (autonomic, neuroendocrine, gene) pathways by which these associations occur. She has also recently begun work that examines how social relationships may be utilized in interventions to potentially reduce risk.

Dr. Holt-Lunstad has worked with government organizations aimed at addressing this issue. She has provided expert testimony in a US Congressional Hearing, expert recommendations for the US Surgeon General Emotional Well-Being in America Initiative, served as a member of the scientific advisory committee for the UK Cross Departmental Loneliness Team, and a member of a National Academy of Sciences Engineering & Medicine consensus committee, and the US Administration for Community Living. She also serves as a scientific advisor for several organizations across sectors. She has been awarded the George A. Miller Award from the American Psychological Association, Karl G. Maeser Distinguished Faculty Research Award, Mary Lou Fulton Young Scholar Award, Marjorie Pay Hinkley Endowed Chair Research Award from BYU, and is a Fellow for the Association of Psychological Science and American Psychological Association. Her work has been highlighted in the BBC 100 Breakthrough Health Discoveries in 2015 and has been covered in the New York Times, The Washington Post, Time Magazine, Scientific American, This American Life, The Today Show, and other major media outlets.

Dr. Risa Weisberg is the Chief Clinical Officer at BehaVR, Inc, a virtual reality based-digital therapeutics company. In this role, she is responsible for the clinical content of BehaVR’s products as well as the company’s research strategy. Dr. Weisberg has devoted her career to developing and scientifically testing scalable interventions for common behavioral health problems. Her mission is to expand the reach of high-quality, science-based behavioral health treatment.
Dr. Weisberg has a doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology from the University at Albany. She completed a doctoral internship and postdoctoral fellowship at Brown University. She is a Professor of Psychiatry at the Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine and an Adjunct Professor of Family Medicine at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University. She is an expert in cognitive-behavioral therapy and acceptance and commitment therapies. Much of her work has focused on the integration of behavioral health and primary care. As such, Dr. Weisberg has broad experience in treatment development and implementation for common behavioral health problems including anxiety, depression, chronic pain, substance use disorder, and adaptation to living with other chronic medical difficulties. Her research has been funded by over 20 grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute, the Veterans Administration, and numerous foundations.
Dr. Weisberg was previously the Assistant Chief of Psychology at the VA Boston Healthcare System, where she also directed the Psychology Internship Training Program. She is a member of the Scientific Council of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) and a Fellow and of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT). She is a former member of the Board of Directors for both ADAA and ABCT. She lives outside of Boston, Massachusetts with her husband, two daughters, and their seriously spoiled Portuguese water dog.

Anna Williams; Patient Advocate, Moderator of the Trigeminal Neuralgia Support Facebook Group

Anna Williams is a patient advocate in the headache disease community. She finds it to be an empowering experience to help others navigate the patient journey. One of her diagnoses is a rare condition, Trigeminal Neuralgia. She joined the admin team of the "Trigeminal Neuralgia Support Group" to help support, encourage and educate those who experience this disease and their caregivers/supporters. Her favorite part aside from encouraging members is to create resources the members can use to better be able to partner with their health care providers in their treatment plans.

Anna's advocacy not only takes place in Facebook groups, but also with organizations. She serves on the Board of Directors for Clusterbusters, an organization that advocates for those who experience cluster headache. She also works with organizations such as the Alliance for Headache Disorders Advocacy and the Chronic Disease Coalition to make sure the patient voice is heard among policy makers.