Julia R. Pozuelo headshot

Julia R. Pozuelo, BSc, MSc, PhD

Research Scientist in Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Julia R. Pozuelo, PhD, is a Research Scientist in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Her research aims to improve mental health treatments for people in low-resource settings. Trained in economics and psychiatry, she brings these disciplines together to address three related questions: where and why treatment gaps arise, how evidence-based interventions can be delivered at scale, and how treatment can be further improved for individual patients and providers.

Her current work includes OptimizeD, a large NIH-funded precision treatment trial examining which treatment for depression – antidepressant medication or psychotherapy – works best for different patients, with the goal of improving treatment selection in primary care in India. She is also a co-investigator on BRIDGE-AI, a Wellcome-funded study exploring how artificial intelligence can support the training and supervision of non-specialist counselors delivering psychotherapy for depression in India.

Julia holds a BSc in Economics from Carlos III University of Madrid, an MSc in Economics for Development from the University of Oxford, and a PhD in Psychiatry from the University of Oxford. Previously, she worked as a Research Analyst at the Brookings Institution and as a researcher at the University of Oxford. Julia is also a member of the Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Group at the University of Oxford, a researcher at the Centre for the Study of African Economies, and an honorary researcher in the MRC/Wits-Agincourt Unit at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa.

  1. Pozuelo, J. R.*, Lahiri, A.*, Hollon, S. D., Singh, R. S. P., Kushwah, A., Khanduri, M., Shukla, A., Khan, A., Parashar, Y., Bhan, A., G., S., Shende, V., Dongare, N., Kessler, R. C., Singla, D. R., Naslund, J. A., Cuijpers, P., Herzallah, M. M., Lu, C., Choi, K. W., Smoller, J. W., VanderWeele, T. J., Atal, S., Kulsum, U., Biswas, D., Rozatkar, A., Modak, T., Joel, M. M., Nema, A., Patankar, C., Prabhala, J., Khanna, S., & Patel, V. (2026). A pilot study of a precision treatment trial comparing psychotherapy and antidepressants for depression in Indian primary care settings. Behavior Therapy.
  2. Shah, A.*, Shelly, S.*, Fernandes, L., Bhan, A., Dongare, N., Ghosh, M., Kesarkar, S., Nadkarni, A., Naslund, J., Pozuelo, J. R., Patel, V., Gandhi, Y., Pacheco, M., Agrawal, R., & Singla, D. R. (2026). Digital supervision of nonspecialist providers delivering psychosocial interventions for depression in India: A feasibility and acceptability study. Cambridge Prisms: Global Mental Health.
  3. Kamat, S., Fernandes, L., Shah, A., Agrawal, R., Bhan, A., Lu, C., Nadkarni, A., Nakamura, C., Patel, V., Pozuelo, J. R., Singla, D., & Naslund, J. A. (2026). Evaluating the costs of developing a digital supervision tool for task-shared depression care: Findings from a multi-site study in India. BJPsych Open.
  4. Kilford, E. J., Fielmann, S. L., Baloyi, T., (...) & Blakemore, S.-J. (2026). The Limpopo Facial Emotion Stimulus Set: Locally validated stimuli for emotion research in sub-Saharan Africa. Emotion. Preprint
  5. Makhanya, Z., Moffett, B., Pozuelo, J. R., (...) & DoBAt and Ebikolwa Consortium (2026). Peer mentor training and supervision for a digital adolescent depression treatment in South Africa and Uganda: Mixed methods evaluation. JMIR Mental Health. 
  6. Pozuelo, J. R., Kessler, R. C., Patel, V., (...) & Hollon, S. D. (2026). Development of a baseline battery to optimize depression treatment assignment in primary care: Balancing breadth and brevity. Journal of Affective Disorders.
  7. Kazdin, A. E., Pozuelo, J. R., Harris, M. G., (...) & Vigo, D. V. (2026). Patterns and predictors of the transition between minimally adequate treatment and effective treatment coverage for mental disorders: Results from the World Mental Health Survey. International Journal of Mental Health Systems. 
  8. Stein, D. J., Kazdin, A. E., Baldwin, D. S., Harris, M. G., Hwang, I., Pozuelo, J. R., (...) & WHO World Mental Health Survey collaborators (2026). Anxiolytic medication use in low-, middle- and high-income countries: A World Mental Health Surveys report. Human Psychopharmacology: Clinical and Experimental. 
  9. Shafran, R., Bond, L., Carlbring, P., Cohen, Z., Creed, T. A., Davey, E., (...) & Wade, T. D. (2025). From innovation to implementation: Artificial intelligence in cognitive behaviour therapy training and supervision. Behaviour Research and Therapy. 
  10. Pozuelo, J. R., Vigo, D. V., Kazdin, A. E., Harris, M. G., Stein, D. J., (...), Kessler, R. C., & World Mental Health Survey collaborators (2025). Predictors and barriers to minimally adequate treatment among treated individuals with mental disorders: Results from the World Mental Health Survey. International Journal of Mental Health Systems. 
  11. Dallison, S., Moffett, B., Makhubela, P., Nkuna, T., Pozuelo, J. R., van Heerden, A., & O’Mahen, H. (2025). Using generative AI to co-design digital mental health interventions with adolescents: Thematic analysis of participatory workshops in rural South Africa. Journal of Medical Internet Research. 
  12. Smith, C. W., Sorsdahl, K., Pozuelo, J. R., & van der Westhuizen, C. (2025). Psychometric properties of the English-language Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale-16 for 15–18-year-old adolescents in the Western Cape of South Africa. SSM – Mental Health. 
  13. Agrawal, R., Monteiro, K., Narasimhamurti, N. S., Sharma, S., Suryawanshi, A., Bariya, A., Narvekar, S., Bagnoli, L., Saxena, M., Magoun, L., Parsekar, S. S., Pozuelo, J. R., Lesh, N., Sood, M., Sharma, T., Yadav, H., Bhan, A., Nadkarni, A., & Patel, V. (2025). A conversational agent (PracticePal) to support the delivery of a brief behavioral activation treatment for depression in rural India: Development and pilot-testing study. JMIR Formative Research. 
  14. Pozuelo, J. R., Lahiri, A., Singh, R. S. P., Kushwah, A., Khanduri, M., Shukla, A., (...) & Patel, V. (2025). Optimizing treatment for depression in primary care using psychotherapy versus antidepressant medication in a low-resource setting: Protocol for the OptimizeD randomized controlled trial. BMC Psychiatry. 
  15. Moffett, B.*, Pozuelo, J. R.*, Musenge, E., Makhanya, Z., O’Mahen, H. A., Craske, M. G., (...) & Stein, A. (2025). A behavioral activation digital intervention incorporating gamification and peer mentor support for adolescent depression in rural South Africa: A pilot randomized controlled trial (the DoBAt study). JAACAP Open. 
  16. Roest, A. M., de Vries, Y. A., Pozuelo, J. R., (...) & Kessler, R. C. (2025). Comorbidity and temporal associations between mental disorders among college students in the World Mental Health International College Student Initiative. Psychiatry Research. 
  17. Pozuelo, J. R., Nabulumba, C., Sikoti, D., Davis, M., Onoria, J., Kinyanda, E., van Heerden, A., O’Mahen, H. A., Craske, M. G., DoBAt & Ebikolwa Consortium, Sulaiman, M., & Stein, A. (2024). A narrative-gamified mental health app for adolescents in Uganda: A mixed-methods feasibility and acceptability study. JMIR Serious Games. 
  18. Pozuelo, J. R., Moffett, B. D., Davis, M., Stein, A., Cohen, H., Craske, M. G., (...) & O’Mahen, H. A. (2023). User-centered design of a gamified mental health app for adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa: Multicycle usability testing study. JMIR Formative Research. 
  19. van Heerden, A. C., Pozuelo, J. R., & Kohrt, B. A. (2023). Global mental health services and the impact of artificial intelligence–powered large language models. JAMA Psychiatry. 
  20. Pozuelo, J. R.*, Bradenbrink, R.*, Stierna, M. F.*, & Sterck, O. (2023). Depression, violence and socioeconomic outcomes among refugees in East Africa: Evidence from a multicountry representative survey. BMJ Mental Health.
  21. Rowe, K., Pozuelo, J. R., Nickless, A., Nkosi, A. K., dos Santos, A., Kahn, K., Tollman, S., Wagner, R. G., Scerif, G., & Stein, A. (2023). The adolescent HIV executive function and drumming (AHEAD) study: A feasibility trial of a group drumming intervention amongst adolescents with HIV. AIDS Care. 
  22. Moffett, B. D.*, Pozuelo, J. R.*, van Heerden, A., O’Mahen, H. A., Craske, M., Sodi, T., (...) & Stein, A. (2022). Digital delivery of behavioural activation therapy to overcome depression and facilitate social and economic transitions of adolescents in South Africa (the DoBAt study): Protocol for a pilot randomised controlled trial. BMJ Open. 
  23. Pozuelo, J. R., Desborough, L., Stein, A., & Cipriani, A. (2021). Systematic review and meta-analysis: Depressive symptoms and risky behaviors among adolescents in low- and middle-income countries. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. 
  24. Pozuelo, J. R., & Kilford, E. J. (2021). Adolescent Health Series: Adolescent neurocognitive development in Western and sub-Saharan Africa. Tropical Medicine & International Health. 
  25. Graham, C., & Pozuelo, J. R. (2021). Do high aspirations lead to better outcomes? Evidence from a longitudinal survey of adolescents in Peru. Journal of Population Economics. 
  26. Pozuelo, J. R., Stein, A., Blakemore, S. J., Kahn, K., Dercon, S., & Pettifor, A. (2020). Cash transfers in adolescence: A developmental perspective. The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health. 
  27. Graham, C., & Pozuelo, J. R. (2017). Happiness, stress, and age: How the U curve varies across people and places. Journal of Population Economics.