Conference Grant Award Recipient Amy Bucher by: Amy Bucher

Conference chair Dr. Susan Michie opens the proceedings.

Conference chair Dr. Susan Michie opens the proceedings.

The JL Boston Conference Grant Fund was established to encourage, empower, and enable active members of the Junior League of Boston to pursue training opportunities, through an offset of registration and related costs. This grant helps us live into our commitment to connect trained volunteers to meaningful community projects. We’re excited to share how our 2018-2019 recipients used their awards for personal and professional development.

Amy Bucher attended the 2019 CBC Conference – Behaviour Change for Health: Digital and Other Innovative Methods, in London UK in April 2019. Amy is an Active Member who currently serves on the Executive Management Team as the Vice President of Communications. Professionally, Amy works as a Behavior Change Design Director for Mad*Pow, where her responsibilities include applying psychological science to design research projects and behavior change interventions.

The CBC conference is hosted by the University College London, and brings together behavior change professionals working in both industry and academia to discuss best practices in digital health. In addition to keynote talks by members of the University College London faculty, other keynote speakers hailed from Johnson & Johnson and the University of Connecticut. Topics included the role of social media in encouraging healthy behaviors, the ethical obligations of researchers working on artificial intelligence, and how to appropriately research whether a digital health app is effective and useful.

Panelists Dr. Sherry Pagoto, Dr. Amy Bucher, Dr. Sarah Mullane, and Elspeth Kirkman

Panelists Dr. Sherry Pagoto, Dr. Amy Bucher, Dr. Sarah Mullane, and Elspeth Kirkman

Amy spoke as part of a panel called “Navigating Tensions: Weaving Academic Behavior Change Research Into Applied Digital Health to Optimize Results.” The women on the panel all work in the intersection of academic and applied research, which sometimes have competing priorities. Audience members asked the panels questions about specific issues they face in their projects and how they try to address them.

Not only does the CBC conference give Amy an opportunity to stay up-to-date in her field, she also believes that her work as a behavioral scientist benefits her contributions to the Junior League of Boston. Having focused on internal placements in recent years, Amy sees opportunities to encourage positive behaviors among our membership by using psychology. At the same time, Amy is motivated to volunteer with the Junior League of Boston because of the organization’s ability to impact the health and wellness outcomes she targets through her work.