Lab Overview
This page overviews the research group I run at Utah State University, which we call the School Mental Health Lab. I update this page whenever there is a meaningful change in the lab ecosystem.
Mission
The lab’s mission is to do research that improves the quality and accessibility of mental health services for youth, especially in school settings.
Big Ideas
There are four big ideas driving our lab:
Schools can be community hubs for youth mental health services.
Mental health services should include both prevention and treatment.
Mental health services should balance mitigating ill-being with improving well-being.
School-based mental health services are integral to promoting mental health equity among youth.
Motivated by these big ideas, we pursue different lines of research that are intended to help educators and mental health professionals make better decisions, use better tools, and, ultimately, provide more equitable mental health services for youth. We realize our work plays only a small part toward these ends, but we believe it's a meaningful and useful part.
Lines of Research
Geeking-out on research with my lab is probably my favorite thing about being a professor. The lab currently pursues three lines of research:
Validating brief rating scales for assessing key mental health variables, including ill-being and well-being indicators.
Evaluating the effects of classroom-based interventions for improving youths’ mental health in schools.
Reviewing the evidence on mindfulness practices and translating this research into guidelines for mental health service delivery with youth and in schools.
Occasionally, we undertake projects that are more peripherally related to these lines of research. But all our projects cohere around the lab’s mission of advancing the quality and accessibility of mental health services for youth.
Lab People
The lab is mostly made up of me and my doctoral students, with a few RAs helping out from time to time. I encourage my doctoral students to develop their own research agendas that are grounded in the lab’s mission and guided by their personal values and interests. You can learn more about the doctoral students in my lab at my Current PhD Students page.
We also collaborate with several brilliant colleagues, at other universities, who are doing work related to advancing youth mental health and school-based mental health services. I don’t currently have a page designated to these collaborators, but I hope to get one up and running in the future.
Research Access
You can find the lab's research online via my profile pages at Google Scholar, ResearchGate, and Open Science Framework.
Unfortunately, academic research is notoriously hard to access and often stuck behind paywalls. If you cannot access a publication you would like to read, you can request it through my ResearchGate profile or by emailing me directly.
More
A collection of all lab-related posts on this website can be found right here.
If you found this page because you're interested in potentially joining my lab as a doctoral student, please check out my FAQ for Prospective PhDs page.
If you are looking for a research assistant opportunity, please see my Info for Prospective RAs page.
For more on me and my work, see my About page and my Now page.