Specialization
Focus of research
Dr. Tara Donker is Associate Professor at the Department of Clinical Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and senior researcher at Albert-Ludwig University of Freiburg, Germany. She is a member of the Amsterdam Publich Health (APH) research institute. She is also a licensed Health Care Psychologist and has a registration in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (VGCt). Her research focuses on early intervention and prevention of depression, anxiety and suicide, based on innovative technologies such as virtual reality and mobile apps. Her main goal is to make mental health care more accessible and scalable.
ZeroPhobia
Dr. Donker is the principal investigator and co-founder of ZeroPhobia: a low-cost mobile app using virtual reality and augmented reality for specific phobias that users can follow at home without the intervention from a therapist. Results from a RCT demonstrated large effect sizes for ZeroPhobia fear of heigts, compared to a waitlist control group. A RCT investigating effectiveness of ZeroPhobia for fear of flying has just been completed. And the RCT using Augmented Reality for fear of spiders will commence soon.