Research Team

Developmental psychologists working at the intersection of digital media, adolescent health, and clinical psychology.

Core team

The Digital Youth Project grew out of Luka Todorović's PhD trajectory at the University of Amsterdam, supervised by Dr. Helle Larsen and co-supervised by Dr. Annabel Bogaerts.

Luka Todorović
PhD Candidate

Luka Todorović, MSc

Luka has been a PhD candidate at the University of Amsterdam since 2022, coordinating the Digital Youth Project and supervising student research assistants. His interest in problematic digital media use developed during his Research Master's at the University of Groningen. His work spans survey research, longitudinal designs, laboratory studies, and experience sampling.

Dr. Helle Larsen
Associate Professor

Dr. Helle Larsen

Helle is an Associate Professor at the University of Amsterdam specialising in social and cognitive processes underlying health behaviours in youth, including digital media use, substance use, and self-regulation. She is a board member of the Research Priority Area 'Youth Digitality' at UvA, academic director of the UvA Summer School 'Mental Health, Youth and Society', and chairs the Dutch Society for Developmental Psychology (VNOP).

Dr. Annabel Bogaerts
Assistant Professor

Dr. Annabel Bogaerts

Annabel is an Assistant Professor at the University of Amsterdam. Her research focuses on identity development, feelings of emptiness, and their links to psychopathology and self-destructive behaviour in adolescents and young adults. She uses longitudinal and narrative methods to examine how identity processes relate to outcomes including depression, borderline personality disorder, and non-suicidal self-injury. She is also a licensed clinical psychologist at PraxisP in Belgium.

Collaborators

Many people have contributed to the Digital Youth Project through co-authorship, data access, or research collaboration.

Dr. Bianca Boyer
Associate Professor

Dr. Bianca E. Boyer

Bianca is an Associate Professor in Developmental and Educational Psychology at Leiden University. Her research focuses on attention and self-regulation difficulties in children and adolescents, with particular interest in ADHD. She collaborated on the early conceptualisation of the Digital Youth Project.

Prof. Dr. Susanne de Rooij
Associate Professor

Prof. Dr. Susanne R. de Rooij

Susanne is an Associate Professor at Amsterdam UMC, where she works in the Department of Epidemiology and Data Science and the Centre for Urban Mental Health. Her expertise lies in the long-term developmental effects of early-life adversity, and she oversees data infrastructure for the ABCD cohort that underpins two of the Digital Youth Project studies.

HB
PhD Candidate

Hanan Bozhar, MSc

Hanan is a PhD candidate at Amsterdam UMC in the Department of Public and Occupational Health, within the Amsterdam Public Health research programme. Her work focuses on health behaviours and chronic disease. She collaborated on data management and co-authored the Digital Youth Project's first longitudinal publication.

JB
PhD Candidate

Janina Baumer, MSc

Janina is a PhD candidate at Utrecht University in the Department of Developmental Psychology, where her research bridges developmental psychology and education. She joined the Digital Youth Project as a Research Master's student at the University of Amsterdam, contributing to the experimental setup, analysis, and writing of the ADHD and problematic digital media use study.

Join as collaborator

We welcome contributions from researchers, clinicians, and institutions. If you'd like to collaborate, get in touch and we can add your profile here. To make it easy, just send us:

[Title, name, and institutional affiliation]
[One sentence on your position, one on how you got involved with DYP, one on your research interests]
[A profile photo or link to your institutional page]
[Contact email or profile URL to display]
Contact us →

Partner organisations

The Digital Youth Project is based at the University of Amsterdam and collaborates with partner institutions in the Netherlands and beyond.

UvA

University of Amsterdam

Primary home of the project. Research is conducted within the Department of Psychology and the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences (FMG).

Amsterdam UMC

Amsterdam UMC

Collaborating institution for the ABCD cohort studies (Studies II and VI). Data infrastructure, cohort management, and epidemiological expertise.

Fundació Pere Tarrés

Fundació Pere Tarrés

Spanish non-profit organisation based in Barcelona, active in youth education, leisure, and social services. Partner on an Erasmus KA2+ grant application for developing youth digital well-being tools.

Work with us

We collaborate with schools, clinics, and other researchers. If you'd like to discuss a partnership or get involved, please reach out.