Alison Darcy

Alison Darcy is a clinical research psychologist and health tech designer who has reimagined how psychotherapy can be delivered for the way we live today. Her deep clinical expertise, pioneering mindset, and passion for accessible design are grounded in a 25-year track record studying and developing solutions that engage people in a therapeutic process. Darcy's training at University College Dublin (UCD), Stanford School of Medicine, and with the American Psychiatric Association, along with her experience leading AI pioneer Andrew Ng’s Health Innovation Lab, helped her advance the shift from conventional face-to-face therapy to complementary AI-powered interventions. In 2017 she introduced the first scientifically-informed mental health chatbot, Woebot, to make high quality therapy radically accessible. Darcy is a vocal advocate for the safe and effective use of AI in healthcare. She also established the practices for Woebot studies and trials that have helped push the entire field forward and made Woebot Health the single most mentioned digital therapeutics company in the peer-reviewed scientific literature today. Named to the inaugural TIME100 AI List recognizing the 100 most influential individuals advancing AI, and the recipient of the 2023 UCD Alumni Award in Social Sciences, Darcy is also an Adjunct Faculty member in the Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Department of Stanford’s School of Medicine.