About Us
The Connected for Wellness app has been developed as a digital mental health tool for youth, parents, and youth-serving professionals such as teachers and clinic providers. This app has been created through a process of multi-site co-development between researchers, clinicians, educators, undergraduate and medical students and residents, and community members – most importantly youth co-developers who have been instrumental to this process.
UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) Team
- Sheryl H. Kataoka, MD, MSHS
- Roya Ijadi-Maghsoodi, MD, MSHPH
- Patricia Lester, MD
- Laura McMullin, Ph.D.
- Ashley Johnson, M.S.
- Alison Wood, MPH
- Kimberly Covarrubias, BA
- Alexis Aleman (MD Candidate)
- Hilary Aralis, PhD (UC Davis, Department of Public Health)
- Alumni Researchers and Contributors
- Limi Ahmed, M.D.
- Jinger Alvarez, LCSW (School partner)
- Stephanie Bueno, MD
- Milan Carter (MD Candidate)
- Amira Collison, MD
- Shirley De La Cruz, BA
- Brianna Hobson, Ph.D.
- Christine (Kungeun) Lee, MA
- Faith Lee, BS
- Meachelle Lum, MD
- Shiv Nadkarni, MD
- Himakar Nagam, MD
- Leslie Nunez, MD, MPH
- Elizabeth Ollen, Ph.D.
- Natalia Ramos, MD, MPH
- Ivy C. Snyder, PhD
- Dominque Taylor, M.D.
- Carla Lavelle Trinh, LCSW, PPSC (School partner)
UCR (University of California, Riverside) Team
- Lisa R. Fortuna, MD, MPH, MDiv
- Michelle V. Porche, EdD
- Jaime Smith, BA, CCRP
- Jose G. Lechuga, MS
- Taina Saenz (Youth member)
- Sahithi Malireddy, BS
- Daniel Lee, PhD
- Alumni Researchers and Contributors
- Stephany Garcia, BA
- J.C. Gonzalez, PhD
- Joseph A. Spillane
- Aria Rani Sindledecker (Youth member)
UCSF (University of California, San Francisco) Team
- Martha Shumway, PhD
- Alumni Researchers and Contributors
- Marina Tolou-Shams, PhD
- Johanna Folk, PhD
- Joseph A. Spillane
- Amy Whittle, MD
Allyance Logic
- Greg Barish, PhD
- Roman Hladilka, BS
- Brittany Karim, BA
- Tierra Andrews, BA
- Elizabeth Endo, BS
- Carlos Sillero
- Gabriel Yap, BS
- Raniya Taj (intern)
- Ariel Ng (intern)
Community Partners
- Innercare
- Los Angeles Trust for Children’s Health
- Los Angeles Unified School District
Publications
Barish, G., Ijadi-Maghsoodi, R., Lavelle Trinh, C., Alvarez, J., Hobson, B.J., Ollen, E., Karim, B., Kataoka, S. and Lester, P. (2022). Sensing school community needs: a co-designed, personalized mental health app for high school students, parents, and staff. In Adjunct Proceedings of the 2022 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing, ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computers (pp. 478-482). https://doi.org/10.1145/3544793.3563425
Fortuna, L. R., Porche, M. V., Shumway, M., Ijadi-Maghsoodi, R., Aralis, H., Folk, J. B., Tolou-Shams, M., Barish, G., Gonzalez, J. C., & Kataoka, S. (2025). Study protocol of the Connected for Wellness mobile app for addressing mental health disparities through schools and primary care clinics. JMIR Res Protoc 2025;14:e73721 https://www.researchprotocols.org/2025/1/e73721 DOI: 10.2196/73721
Gonzalez, J. C., Garcia, S., Ijadi-Maghsoodi, R., Spillane, J., De La Cruz, S. A., Lee, K., Lee, D., Kataoka, S., Porche, M. V., Fortuna, L. R. (2025). Psychoeducation in School-Based Mental Health: Youth and Caregiver Insights for a Digital App. Child Psychiatry & Human Development. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-025-01918-z
Support for Connected for Wellness
Rare Impact Fund: Developed by Selena Gomez, the Rare Impact Fund is committed to addressing youth mental health and self-acceptance. They supported the creation of the Connected for Wellness app and its dissemination in schools.
NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health): Research reported here was supported by the Office of the Director, National Institutes of Health under OT award number U01 MH131827. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. We plan to conduct a clinical trial in high schools and primary care clinics. You can read more about protocol for the clinical trial here: JMIR Research Protocols – Addressing Youth Mental Health Through Schools and Primary Care Clinics Using the Connected for Wellness Mobile App: Protocol for a Stepped-Wedge Trial.