DART Lab | Meet Our Team

Joe Kossowsky PhD, MMSc. is a clinical investigator in the Division of Pain Medicine in the Department of Anesthesiology, Critical Care and Pain Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital. Following his graduate studies in Clinical Psychology and Neuroscience, Dr. Kossowsky obtained his PhD in Clinical Psychology at the University of Basel, Switzerland and a Master's degree in Biomedical Informatics from Harvard Medical School. He completed postdoctoral fellowships in the areas of pediatric pain, placebo research and biomedical informatics at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Anaesthesia at Harvard Medical School.

Bridget is a post-doctoral research fellow at Boston’s Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School. She earned her PhD in clinical psychology from Vanderbilt University in 2022 and completed her clinical internship at Franciscan Children’s. As a post-doc, her research interests include studying how digital technologies can be leveraged to assess symptoms and to provide interventions for youth with behavioral and mental health disorders. She also is interested in how these technologies can increase access to care for diverse populations. Clinically, she is interested in taking a biopsychosocial approach to provide evidence-based intervention to youth with wide-ranging internalizing, externalizing, and physical symptoms.

Camila is a medical student from the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Her years at medical school have nurtured a strong interest for the full breadth fields encompassed by internal medicine, especially substance use. Currently, she is involved in data analysis of scientific projects related to sleep quality and chronic pain. During her leisure time, she enjoys practicing different sports and cooking delicious and unusual recipes.

Pelin is a psychology graduate from the University of Basel. Her research interests include the assessment of behavioral patterns through digital technologies and the provision of just-in-time interventions. She is interested in discovering digital technologies that are user-friendly and facilitate the access to interventions. 

Andreas is a psychology graduate from Basel with broad clinical interests ranging from sleep and functional well-being to PTSD and substance use. He believes in the superior utility of longitudinal data and has worked with many different kinds thereof. At the forefront of his research is the gathering, processing, and analyzing of actigraphy data in pediatrics, which allows us to understand these patients much better than just a 1-10 pain rating. He is a big proponent of interdisciplinary work between clinicians of all stripes and technical experts and hopes to be a connecting piece between these fields allowing us to understand and help.

Ian is currently a senior at Brookline High School with hopes to study Human Evolutionary Biology in college. Growing up with two doctors as parents, Ian has been drawn to medicine since he was a child and is interested in emergency medicine. Ian is newly interested in research, especially around adolescents, technology, and mental health. In his free time, he enjoys exercising, spending time with friends and family, and playing video games.

Helen, a former DART Lab Postdoctoral Research fellow, focuses on chronic pain in children and adolescents. She is interested in psychological factors, especially emotions, emotion regulation and sensory processing sensitivity, that might contribute to the development and maintenance of chronic pain. Knowing more about these factors might also help to detect children at risk to develop chronic pain after an episode of acute pain. Another focus of her research is to examine the safety and efficacy of available interventions for patients suffering from chronic pain. Methodologically, she analyzes existing data from randomized-controlled trials by means of (network) meta-analyses, conducts experiments, and is planning a small clinical trial that examines the efficacy of animal-assisted psychotherapy for children with chronic pain. Apart from her affiliation at Boston Children’s Hospital, she is an adjunct senior researcher at the Division of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy at the Faculty of Psychology, University of Basel.

Justin, a former DART Lab Research Coordinator, graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Brandeis University in 2020 where he received a Bachelor of Science in Biology with minors in Psychology and Music. Justin is passionate about preventing disease, promoting well-being, and mitigating barriers to healthcare. He is particularly interested in pediatric primary care, rehabilitation, and nutrition. In his free time, Justin enjoys hiking, visual and performing arts, and playing a plethora of musical instruments.

Kyra, a former DART Lab Research Intern, earned a BA in Biological Sciences and Classics from Binghamton University in 2019. She is currently a second-year graduate student in the MS in Medical Sciences program at Boston University. She is participating in the Pediatric Anesthesia Clinical and Research Internship at Boston Children’s Hospital and is working on her thesis. Her long-term goal is to pursue a career as a physician. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, cooking, and exploring Boston!

Sruthi graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2023, where she received a B.A. in Cognitive Science with minors in Chemistry and Creative Writing. Sruthi is heavily interested in the intersection between rehabilitation and pain management and mental health/individual coping strategies. In her free time, she can be found reading mystery novels or participating in the performing arts.