#  Caitlyn Vergara 

Research Assistant, EMPOWER

 

 

 



   ![Caitlyn](/sites/g/files/omnuum8326/files/styles/hwp_4_5__480x600/public/mentalhealthlab/files/a20240609_xiao_03_caitlyn_vergara_liu_cun_xiao_xiang_378.jpg?itok=MovwpqSo) 

 



 





 

Caitlyn Vergara is an advocate for public safety and mental health. A graduate of UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, she completed a capstone project with Google\[x\] on public perception of predictive policing models in California. As a research fellow at Google\[x\], she led participatory research to build data privacy policies for marginalized populations, ensuring their lived experiences were not misinterpreted or weaponized against them.

Her interest in digital ethics and wellness led her to conduct youth mental health and Trust & Safety research at Stanford Psychiatry and SimPPL, where she developed digital wellness resources for youths and frameworks for online safety. Caitlyn is now a Research Assistant III at Harvard’s Mental Health for All Lab, supporting the EMPOWER youth pilot, a digital program to scale the mental health workforce.