Aaron Lyon, PhD
Personal Statement
My research focuses on increasing the accessibility, efficiency, and effectiveness of community- and school-based interventions for children, adolescents, and families. I am particularly interested in (1) the identification and implementation of low-cost, high-yield practices – such as the use of measurement-based care – to reduce the gap between typical and optimal practice in schools; (2) development of individual- and organization-level implementation strategies to promote adoption and sustainment of evidence-based psychosocial interventions within a multi-tier systems of support (MTSS) framework; and (3) human-centered design (and redesign) of psychosocial and digital technologies to improve their implementability, accessibility, and effectiveness. I am the founder and Director of the School Mental Health Assessment, Research, and Training (SMART) Center, dually housed in UW’s School of Medicine and College of Education.
Education
PhD: Clinical Psychology, DePaul University, Chicago
Residency: Clinical Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle
Fellowship: Mental Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle
Department Affiliations
Centers/Programs
Training Programs
Research Institute for Implementation Science in Education (RIISE)
Scholarly Expertise
Clinical Expertise
- USABILITY: The Usability of Social-emotional and Behavioral Interventions: Links to Implementation and Translation to Youth Outcomes
- Beliefs and Attitudes for Successful Implementation in Schools – Teachers (BASIS-T)
- Testing the efficacy of the Helping Educational Leaders Mobilize Evidence (HELM) implementation strategy
- PHSKC School Based Health Services
- PHSKC Planning and Evaluation
- State Implementation and Scaling-up of Evidence-based Practices (SISEP) Center
- Parent and teacher engagement as an undervalued implementation determinant
- Beliefs and Attitudes for Successful Implementation in Schools
- A Hybrid Effectiveness-Implementation Trial of a School-based Teen Marijuana Check-Up
- Exploring mechanisms of change in a pilot trial of the RUBI Program in educational settings
- Initial efficacy trial of a group-based implementation strategy designed to increase teacher delivery of evidence-based prevention programs
- Beliefs and Attitudes for Successful Implementation in Schools (BASIS)
- A Research Institute for Implementation Science in Education (RIISE) to address the “Last Mile” in education
- Helping Educational Leadership Mobilize Evidence (HELM): an organizational intervention to promote strategic implementation in schools
- Disseminating a user-friendly guide: Advancing the science of intervention adaptation and improving access to evidence-based psychological treatment
- mHealth Washington
Recent Publications
(2026 Mar)
Ment Health Prev 41():
Yang MY, Parker SM, O'Hara KL, Sullivan CE, Lyon AR
(2026 May 5)
J Atten Disord
Sibley MH, Van Dreel S, Coxe SJ, Ortiz M, Aaronson B, Matlack A, Rainwater T, Kircher BE, Langberg J, Lyon A, Yi A, Yeguez CE
(2026 Apr 22)
Implement Sci Commun 7(1):
Eisenman SR, Vanegas J, Cicchetti C, Compton SN, Gilliam WS, Iruka IU, Lyon AR, Wakschlag LS, Smith JD, Spencer AE, Zulauf-McCurdy CA
(2026 Apr)
J Sch Psychol 115(): 101525
Moore SA, Padilla VE, Touati S, Lyon AR
(2026 Apr)
Contemp Clin Trials 163(): 108259
March CA, Rothenberger S, Naame E, Stouffer V, Moon C, Lyon AR, Libman I, Miller E
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