Translating Fidelity and Flexibility Into Real-World Impact.
For Shannon Wiltsey Stirman, PhD, member of the C-DIAS Research Core—Methods & Measures Section, implementation science is about turning proven therapies into accessible, adaptable care.
Trained as a clinical psychologist, Shannon began her career in a depression lab—learning therapy not by delivering it, but by watching and rating hundreds of sessions. “I started out doing fidelity ratings before I ever practiced therapy,” she recalled. “In implementation science, fidelity is such a key aspect, and I learned that from psychotherapy process research.” That early exposure to what makes treatment work became a foundation for her life’s work: understanding how to support sustained implementation of effective treatments, maintaining fidelity while supporting necessary adaptation.
During her predoctoral internship year at VA Palo Alto, Shannon saw that many patients with depression also carried untreated trauma. Learning trauma-focused therapies revealed the urgency of broader access. “As I evidence-based treatments in grad school and on internship, I saw people getting better,” she said. “And it kept me up at night that so few could access these treatments. We have interventions that work—yet most people still can’t find a therapist trained to deliver them.”
That realization drew her into implementation research, where she focuses on scaling evidence-based psychotherapies such as Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) for PTSD. Across her studies, she’s helped train hundreds of therapists, balancing science with practical reach. “It’s a way I can help give more people access to treatment in the short term while also answering research questions that help us understand how to scale in the long term.”
At C-DIAS, Shannon brings this same balance to her work in the Methods & Measures Section, helping develop shared tools to track both fidelity and adaptation. “One of the things I’m trying to do is support efforts to track these dimensions across projects,” she explained. “We need common data so we can understand how adaptations happen and whether outcomes hold.”
Her collaborations extend nationally—through initiatives like the Beck Community Initiative in Philadelphia and the Strong Star Training Initiative, which bring evidence-based therapy training to community providers—and technologically, through her leadership in the CREATE Center. There, she’s testing how AI can support implementation through asynchronous simulations and consultation on demand. “We’ll never have enough trainers or consultants to meet demand,” she noted. “AI can’t replace human relationships, but it can make support available in real time.”
Whether refining measures, building partnerships, or testing new technologies, Shannon’s focus remains constant: bridging fidelity and flexibility to make effective care usable at scale. “It’s about figuring out how to make science work for people,” she said. “That means knowing what to keep, what to adapt, and how to make evidence-based care fit the world we actually live in.”