dr. AF (Ayla) Schwarz

Dr. Ayla Schwarz is assistant professor in 'Implementation and Engagement in Digital Health' at the chair group Consumption and Healthy Lifestyles. She completed her Bachelor and Master studies (2011-2016) in Applied Communication Sciences at Wageningen University. At Ghent University, Ayla completed her PhD dissertation (2019) on user engagement in serious games to promote physical activity among adolescents. Since 2019 Ayla engages in education, project coordination and research activities at Consumption and Healthy Lifestyles. Ayla has been part as a supporting coordinator of the investment theme 'Protein Transition' (2019-2022), and is involved in a number of BSc and MSc courses relating to public health and qualitative research methodology. Ayla;s postdoctoral research (2020-2024) focussed on implementation of gamified physical activity apps among neighborhood sport coaches in the Netherlands, for sustainable engagement and behavioral change among youth living in low income neighborhoods. The research was embedded in the Vital@2040 project, a project by the Vitality Academy and the EWUU alliance.

Ayla’s research focuses on developing holistic digital health interventions for youth by understanding how physical activity, sedentary behaviour, sleep, and diet interact (24-hour lifestyle change), enhancing sustained uptake/adoption and engagement through engaging/gamified design features, and identifying contextual and stakeholder factors for effective real-world implementation. Together, these lines aim to create engaging and scalable interventions that promote lasting healthy behaviours in young people. By taking a socio-ecological perspective, Ayla aims to better understand the working mechanisms of digital health interventions and their interaction effects holistically, ranging from the individual target user to upscaling by policymakers to better intervene holistically to bring forward change.

Ayla is currently the PI of the BEweegAPP+ project. In this project, funded by ClickNL, it is researched how gamification can be adopted, implemented, and scaled up in policy, by means of concepts such as innovation capacity.

Ayla is involved in the supervision of a PhD project on Data Science and AI in the Online Food Environment project. 

Ayla works together with industry partners, public organizations, citizens, and researchers.