Welcome to Juan Pablo Zapata PhD Associate Director of the Lab for Scalable Mental Health

January 11, 2024

By: Julie A. Bednark

Juan Pablo Zapata, PhD (he/him/él) is a psychologist and serves as the Associate Director of the Lab for Scalable Mental Health. He is also a Research Assistant Professor of Medical Social Sciences at Northwestern University. Juan obtained his PhD in Clinical Psychology from Marquette University in 2022 and completed his Doctoral Internship in Health Psychology at the University of Washington. Additionally, he completed a NIH T32 Postdoctoral Fellowship (Grant Number: T32MH130325) in Translational Science, HIV, and Sexual and Gender Minority Health at ISGMH. With extensive training and research experience, Dr. Zapata specializes in LGBTQ and Latino mental health, HIV, public health, digital health, and implementation science. Juan's professional focus revolves around the development, adaptation, and evaluation of interventions and implementation strategies to achieve health equity among key populations affected by HIV and mental health disparities. During his T32 Fellowship, he actively participated in three national effectiveness-implementation hybrid trials of eHealth interventions for adolescents and young sexual minority men. Much of his independent research has centered on adapting and assessing culturally grounded implementation strategies aimed at scaling up and disseminating evidence-based HIV prevention (e.g., PrEP) and behavioral health interventions to Latino men who have sex with men. In 2024, Juan joined the Lab for Scalable Mental Health and collaborates closely with Jessica Schleider, PhD to develop, test, adapt, and disseminate scalable, evidence-based mental health solutions, with a particular emphasis on single-session interventions (SSIs) for underserved youth. Welcome Juan!