AIM Funded Research

Reducing Cultural and Structural Barriers to Youth Mental Health Care

AIM Clinical Science Fellow Grantee: Wendy Chu, PhD - Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. Wendy will co-develop a culturally responsive system to reduce cultural and structural barriers to mental health care for racially marginalized youth. Working alongside youth co-researchers, she will create a therapist training and a user-friendly tool to help youth and caregivers identify and address these barriers early in treatment, improving engagement and access to care.

Help for Parents with Children on Waitlists for Therapy

AIM Clinical Science Fellow Grantee: Madelaine R. Abel, PhD -Massachusetts General Hospital. Madelaine will evaluate the acceptability and efficacy of a single-session, self-guided, online intervention delivered to parents of children ages 5-12-years-old who are on the waitlist for outpatient CBT.

Use of Psilocybin for Youth with Stress Related Disorders

AIM Implementation & Equity Grantee: Amanda Tamman, PhD, from the Baylor University College of Medicine will investigate how psilocybin affects two measures of genetic aging in 18-26 year olds with stress-related disorders.

Youth Intervention for Positive Emotion Enhancement

AIM Implementation & Equity Grantee: Galen McNeil, PhD - UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. Dr. McNeil's study will pilot a randomized-controlled trial of the Youth Intervention for Positive Emotion Enhancement (YIPEE) protocol for treatment-seeking anxious youth and their caregivers.

Advancing Sleep and Emotion Regulation for Youth with Bipolar Disorder

AIM Clinical Science Fellow Grantee: Delainey Wescott, PhD - University of Pittsburgh. Delainey will pilot TERRA (Targeting Emotion & Rhythm Regulation in Adolescents), a brief intervention designed to improve sleep and emotion regulation in youth with bipolar spectrum disorders. This study will evaluate the program’s feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy to support future integration into clinical care.

Advancing the Assessment and Treatment of Severe Irritability and Mood Dysregulation in Youth

Dr. Spencer Evans evaluated the effectiveness of existing assessment tools and treatment strategies for severe irritability as well as exploring novel approaches to personalized assessment and treatment. $70,000

Early Intervention to Prevent Serious Mental Illness in Teens

Dr. Marc Weintraub examined the emotional and cognitive pathways linked to severe mental illness in adolescents. His findings include a new approach to treating early symptoms of severe mental illness in teens, holding promise for prevention.

Behavioral Parent Training and Talk Therapies for Disruptive Behavior in Children

$65,580 Second-Year Science Fellowship award for research into finding effective responses for children with severe irritability and frequent aggressive, disruptive behavior. The work is being done by Dr. Spencer Evans, a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University.

Improving Teen Depression Outcomes Through a Digital Intervention

AIM Clinical Science Fellow Grantee: Carter Funkhouser, PhD - Columbia University. Carter will evaluate a brief, web-based intervention designed to support teens with depression by teaching interpersonal skills. Embedded on Mental Health America’s widely used online screening platform, this tool aims to reach adolescents who screen positive for depression but are not seeking formal treatment, improving access, engagement, and mental health outcomes.

Assessing how Postpartum Depression Affects Child Development

AIM Clinical Science Fellow Grant to Dr. Kunmi Sobowale, from University of California, Los Angeles. As an AIM Clinical Science Fellow, Dr. Sobowale’s study will use mobile sensing devices (audio recorders, Bluetooth sensors, and a wearable wristband) to assess how postpartum depression affects the mother-child interaction and child development.

Addressing Urgent Knowledge Gaps in Youth Mental Health Research

AIM Clinical Science Fellow Grant to Dr. Karolin Krause, from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto. As an AIM Clinical Science Fellow, Dr. Krause will work to addresses urgent knowledge gaps regarding the content validity and interpretability of impairment scales in youth mental health. Her research focuses on strengthening outcome measurement in youth mental health, with a focus on consistency, youth-centeredness, and the assessment of functional impairment.

Youth Mental Health and Violence

Dr. Jerel Ezell, a professor at Berkeley University, is leading a study on youth violence in urban centers around the country. With AIM’s support, Ezell will be building a “community action board” of Black and Latino youth in Los Angeles to act as researcher collaborators in his study of youth violence.

Family Interventions for Eating Disorders in Youth through Telehealth

Two coordinated telehealth family intervention eating disorder studies at UCSD and Stanford The study will include two coordinated projects focused on the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary clinical utility of telehealth to deliver family interventions for eating disorders in youth. The UCSD project will focus on multi-family support for patients in treatment. $70,000. The Stanford University project will focus on the online self-help family interventions for patients/families awaiting treatment. $50,000. Both projects will have common outcome measures to assess feasibility, acceptability and clinical change.

Role of Stress, Anxiety, and Parental Influences in Children’s Eating Behaviors

$50,417 Clinical Science Fellowship award to support research on eating in the absence of hunger and obesity risk among African-American and Latinx youth. The work is being done by Dr. Joya Hampton-Anderson, a clinical post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Psychology at Emory University. A key element in this research is the role that stress, anxiety, and parental influences play in determining children’s eating behaviors.

Improving Teen Depression Outcomes Through a Digital Intervention

Reducing Cultural and Structural Barriers to Youth Mental Health Care

Help for Parents with Children on Waitlists for Therapy

Youth Intervention for Positive Emotion Enhancement

A Suicide Intervention App for College Students

AIM Clinical Science Fellow Grant to Benjamin Johnson, from Pennsylvania State. Dr. Johnson’s research combines two aims: 1) apply machine learning to ecological momentary assessment (EMA) data to predict the emergence of self-harm urges and suicidality among young adults; 2) employ a mobile intervention to reduce the likelihood of such behaviors.

Potential Predictors of Suicide in Youth

$64,000 grant. Working alongside AIM Scientific Advisory Board member, Dr. Hilary Blumberg, Anjali will investigate potential predictors of suicide in youth and strategies to reduce them, with a focus on brain and symptom changes before and after psychotherapeutic and pharmacological interventions.

Improving Teen Depression Outcomes Through a Digital Intervention

Reducing Cultural and Structural Barriers to Youth Mental Health Care

Using AI to Improve Teen Mental Health Helplines

AIM Clinical Science Fellow Grantee: Sylvanna Vargas, PhD, MPH - UCLA Geffen School of Medicine. Dr. Vargas's research aims to increase the quality and reach of mental health care, with an eye on improving services for the most vulnerable.

Help for Parents with Children on Waitlists for Therapy

AIM Funded Research

Reducing Cultural and Structural Barriers to Youth Mental Health Care

Help for Parents with Children on Waitlists for Therapy

Use of Psilocybin for Youth with Stress Related Disorders

Youth Intervention for Positive Emotion Enhancement

Advancing Sleep and Emotion Regulation for Youth with Bipolar Disorder

Advancing the Assessment and Treatment of Severe Irritability and Mood Dysregulation in Youth

Early Intervention to Prevent Serious Mental Illness in Teens

Behavioral Parent Training and Talk Therapies for Disruptive Behavior in Children

Improving Teen Depression Outcomes Through a Digital Intervention

Assessing how Postpartum Depression Affects Child Development

Addressing Urgent Knowledge Gaps in Youth Mental Health Research

Youth Mental Health and Violence

Family Interventions for Eating Disorders in Youth through Telehealth

Role of Stress, Anxiety, and Parental Influences in Children’s Eating Behaviors

Improving Teen Depression Outcomes Through a Digital Intervention

Reducing Cultural and Structural Barriers to Youth Mental Health Care

Help for Parents with Children on Waitlists for Therapy

Youth Intervention for Positive Emotion Enhancement

A Suicide Intervention App for College Students

Potential Predictors of Suicide in Youth

Improving Teen Depression Outcomes Through a Digital Intervention

Reducing Cultural and Structural Barriers to Youth Mental Health Care

Using AI to Improve Teen Mental Health Helplines

Help for Parents with Children on Waitlists for Therapy

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