Sarah Beck

Sarah Beck is the director of Cobalt, the mental health and well-being platform for Penn Medicine employees. In this role she oversees the design, implementation, and evaluation strategies across one-on-one care, group support, and self-directed resources.

She is passionate about building cross-functional teams to deliver innovative solutions that are grounded in public service. Her digital product expertise is at the intersection of technology and information; Sarah has led journalism innovation teams at The Guardian, USA Today, and The Philadelphia Inquirer. She enjoys leveraging new technologies and user experience research to make digital experiences that are accessible and relevant to communities.

Sarah earned her bachelor’s degree from Roanoke College, studying English and communications, and a master's degree in journalism from NYU. Her teams have won various awards and grants including the Google Innovation Challenge, in partnership with Columbia and Stanford Universities, and the Online Journalism Association award for technical innovation. Her projects explore the intersection of technology, information, and equity, piloting experiments using machine learning applications and advanced location-based application development. She has published or presented on topics including geo-targeted content campaigns, NLP-assisted audience research, and the impact of AI on the news industry.