Sara E. Landers

Sara Landers’ research interests: Adolescents and young adults, citizen science, harm reduction, HIV/STIs, mental health, participatory research, substance use

Sara E. Landers is an Advanced Practice PhD candidate at Columbia School of Social Work. Sara’s research aims to advance creative, collaborative approaches to promoting adolescent and young adult health. She primarily focuses on the intertwined areas of HIV/STIs, mental health, and substance use. Her current work involves using digital phenotyping and intensive longitudinal methods to examine mental health status among adolescents in New York City, as well as using crowdsourcing to develop content for an HIV stigma reduction intervention among adolescents and young adults in Kazakhstan. Sara is especially passionate about citizen science and using innovative participatory methods to engage youth in the co-creation of equitable health solutions. Outside of her work with young people, Sara is proud to be a co-founder of the Labor of Love project, a research partnership between doctoral students and community members that uses photovoice to promote equity in harm reduction work.

Prior to entering the doctoral program, Sara conducted adolescent health research at both Columbia University Irving Medical Center and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Sara is also trained as a clinician with a specialization in working with young people and their families. Sara received her BS in Psychology from Haverford College, her MSW from the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy & Practice, and is a Licensed Master Social Worker (LMSW) in the state of New York.