Eduardo De La Vega-Taboada

Eduardo De la Vega-Taboada, PhD, is a Postdoctoral Scholar at Florida State University’s Center for Population Sciences for Health Empowerment (CPSHE). His research focuses on developing, testing, and scaling community-engaged interventions that improve health, developmental, and environmental outcomes among youth and families exposed to multiple social and environmental vulnerabilities.

Trained as a civil and industrial engineer and a developmental scientist, Dr. De la Vega-Taboada brings an interdisciplinary lens to population health research, integrating citizen science, participatory action research, implementation science, systems thinking, and the strategic use of technology and artificial intelligence. For more than fifteen years, he has designed and led community-based programs across Latin America focused on positive youth development, conflict resolution, and adaptive leadership, with a strong emphasis on co-creation and local capacity building.

His recent work centers on youth-led citizen science initiatives that combine mobile data collection, qualitative and quantitative methods, and AI-supported facilitation to help communities identify health-relevant environmental and social barriers and engage decision-makers. These efforts have contributed to measurable neighborhood improvements, including enhanced walkability, revitalized public spaces, and increased youth agency. You can see his latest work from his previous Stanford–NIH Postdoctoral Fellowship in a mini-documentary here.