Kelly Koerner on Finding the Edge of What is Known in Research

Research Matters Podcast

Dr. Kelly Koerner is currently the Creative Director of the Evidence-Based Practice Institute, a company she founded. Her work combines technology, design thinking, and science to improve mental health care and help clinicians implement evidence-based practices. After graduating from University of Washington, she was one of the earliest pioneers of Dialectical behavior therapy as the first CEO of Behavioral Tech, the main organization responsible for research on DBT and it’s training. After this, rather than going into academia, she instead decided to found a company that could use science to develop products that would allow for scale and public health impact. Part of what I am aiming to do with this podcast is to interview the outliers, the people who take a different approach to their research and career. It’s the outliers that often are the ones from whom we can learn the most groundbreaking strategies and approaches. Kelly is certainly an outlier in terms of how she approaches her research and in terms of her productivity. She is one of my mentors and I love the way that she thinks about research and how to approach it in a way that can make an impact. There’s so much richness in what she says in this episode and I am glad to be able to share it with you.