Meet Dr. Michael Mrazek, our Newest Center Faculty Member!

Published: August 1, 2024

Michael Mrazek, PhD

As a high school student, Dr. Michael Mrazek was always trying to understand himself and how to live a fulfilling life. This interest led him to study psychology at Rice University and the University of California, Santa Barbara. He now studies the shortening of student attention spans as a public health concern. 

Dr. Mrazek joined UTHealth School of Public Health in Austin in June. His research, primarily funded by the U.S. Department of Education, leverages emerging technologies to improve the attention span and mental health of adolescents.

“For the last decade, my research has been at the intersection of psychology, education, and public health, designing interventions that can improve both the achievement and the well-being of teens in a school setting,” Dr. Mrazek said.

He added that he was drawn to public health work because he wanted to have a broad impact, saying “I realized that developing digital programs that could be disseminated through schools was the best way to effect  change at a large scale.”

Dr. Mrazek is the co-creator of  , a digital tool designed to help teenagers learn the importance of focusing on a single task with undivided attention . As billion-dollar companies work every day to capture more of young people’s focus, student attention spans  are shortening.

Dr. Mrazek noted that when students lose the ability to regulate their attention, their academic achievement and well-being are both affected. “Where one focuses their attention influences what thoughts they engage with and what emotions they feel,” he said.

“It’s crucially important to help students train this ability to focus so that they can do well in school, but also so that they have a greater ability to cultivate their own mental health,” Dr. Mrazek emphasized. “Mental health is a huge part of overall health. There’s an important role for public health experts to address this population-level crisis in mental health that has emerged.”

While basing research in emerging technologies means his work will evolve in the coming years, Dr. Mrazek said one thing that will not change is the applied and practical focus of his research.

“I’ve always been interested in knowledge, not for knowledge’s sake, but because of its capacity to improve people’s lives,” he said.

Dr. Mrazek is an Associate Professor in the Department of Health Promotion & Behavioral Sciences at UTHealth Houston School of Public Health in Austin and a faculty member at the Michael & Susan Dell Center for Healthy Living. His work leverages emerging technologies to improve the focus and mental health of adolescents. Learn more about his work.

Written by Ali Linan Medellin, communication assistant at the Michael & Susan Dell Center for Healthy Living.