Shawn Van

Shawn Van is a postgraduate associate at XRPeds Lab. He is passionate about brief interventions to improve youth mental health through novel technologies (e.g., virtual reality), with a broader interest in the impact of technology (e.g., AI, social media) on youth well-being. He is also interested in scalable interventions (e.g., peer support) and implementation science to improve health outcomes in community-based and low-resource settings.

His current projects at XRPeds Lab include: (1) a mixed-methods pilot evaluation of an online peer-support training among college students, (2) a VR-based assessment of nicotine vaping behaviors and risks among young adults using multimodal physiological and psychological data (e.g., eye gaze, heart rate), and (3) a statewide evaluation of the impact of cellphone restriction policies on students' well-being in Connecticut high schools.

Shawn earned his Master of Public Health from Yale University, where he supported a large-scale implementation of LGBTQ-affirmative mental health therapy in low-resource community settings.