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, 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
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
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 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 R. de Rooij
Susanne is an Associate Professor at Amsterdam UMC, where she works in the Department of Epidemiology and Data Science. Her expertise lies in the long-term developmental effects of early life circumstances. She managed the ABCD cohort data infrastructure that forms the basis of two Digital Youth Project studies.
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.
Hanan Bozhar, MSc
Hanan is a PhD candidate at Amsterdam UMC in the Department of Public Health. Her research examines how social media, substance use, and mental health interact in adolescents, and how social context and urban environment shape these patterns. She collaborated on data management and was a co-author on the first longitudinal publication of the Digital Youth Project.
Internship opportunities
We regularly welcome students to work with us. As an intern at the Digital Youth Project, you would get hands-on involvement in various stages of our studies and learn about state-of-the-art research in the field. Based at the University of Amsterdam, you would also have the chance to participate in a variety of additional academic activities and learning opportunities. Send us a message to learn more about current opportunities!
