Kimberly Hieftje, PhD

Kimberly Hieftje is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and co-director/co-founder of XRPeds at Yale and the new Yale Center for Immersive Technologies in Pediatrics. For the past 14 years, her research has focused on the development, evaluation, and implementation of health and clinical interventions for youth that utilize XR and game technology. Dr. Hieftje has led teams that have developed game interventions focused on topics including e-cigarette, marijuana, alcohol, and tobacco use prevention, HIV/STI prevention and testing, empowering Black teen girls on their sexual health, bystander intervention, LGBTQ bullying, mental health promotion, and grief/loss of a child. Dr. Hieftje is also the Editor-in-Chief of the Games for Health Journal, the premier journal in the field of serious games for health and clinical applications.