Dr. Biernesser is a licensed clinical social worker and behavioral health scientist. She received a MSW and MPH from Tulane University and a PhD from the Department of Behavioral and Community Health Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health. She has worked with adolescents and their families for nearly two decades, the majority of which have been focused on the study and prevention of adolescent suicide.

Her passion for adolescent suicide prevention was brought about by contributing to longitudinal studies of her long-time mentor, David Brent, which assessed risk factors for suicide among families, as well as experience developing digital tools to improve the detection and management of adolescent suicide risk. Among these endeavors, she was a co-developer of the BRITE app, a safety planning and emotion regulation smartphone app that aims to reduce suicide risk among adolescents (PIs: David Brent and Betsy Kennard).

Her current research focuses on developing digital mental health interventions to reduce the impact of negative online experiences and prevent suicide risk among adolescents. She is particularly interested in developing novel suicide prevention interventions for adolescents who are underserved within traditional mental health services, namely youth of color and LGBTQ+ youth.

She is currently PI of a K23 early career award funded by NIMH focused on developing and testing a digital suicide prevention intervention for underserved youth who have been cyberbullied with primary mentor, Dr. Tina Goldstein. She is also PI of an Early Career Research Innovation Grant funded by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, focused on developing a digital suicide prevention for LGBTQ+ youth. Additionally, as part of the ETUDES P50 ALACRITY Center at the University of Pittsburgh, she is co-leading a study with César Escobar-Viera that aims to reduce depression and suicide risk among adolescents who have had online victimization experiences, particularly Black/African American and LGBTQ+ youth, as well as a methods innovation project with SPARC-Life’s Jamie Zelazny, studying the feasibility and acceptability of using social media-based algorithms to detect cyberbullying and suicide risk among adolescents.