Speaker's Profile

Maria Johnson, MA, CCC-SLP, is Director of Youth & Family Innovations at the Center for BrainHealth at The University of Texas at Dallas. She is a clinician-innovator advancing immersive, neuroscience-driven behavioral health technologies that strengthen social-emotional brain health for youth, teens, and young adults—particularly those who are neurodiverse.With more than two decades of clinical and research expertise, Maria specializes in translating neuroscience into scalable, measurable tools that improve social cognition, emotional regulation, and resilient thinking. She leads the development and commercialization of Charisma™ Virtual Social Coaching, an award-winning, avatar-driven digital health platform that blends live strategy-based coaching with immersive, real-time practice. Designed to enhance—not replace—clinicians, the platform integrates structured coaching frameworks with performance analytics to deliver measurable outcomes across telehealth and educational settings.Maria holds two patent-pending innovations focused on immersive measurement of social reasoning and resilience, advancing the field beyond self-report toward dynamic, performance-based assessment embedded within virtual environments. She also developed the Charisma Coach Training certification program, a comprehensive curriculum that equips clinicians and educators with repeatable, neuroscience-informed coaching protocols for scalable implementation within digital health platforms.At a time when healthcare systems are grappling with rising mental health needs, clinician workforce shortages, and widening social skill gaps among youth and young adults, Maria offers a grounded yet forward-looking perspective. She brings clarity to what works, what scales, and what must evolve in order to responsibly integrate immersive technology into behavioral health ecosystems.Through research, patents, curriculum design, strategic partnerships, and executive leadership, Maria represents a new generation of behavioral health innovators—those who do not separate clinical science from product development, nor technology from human connection. Her work reflects a commitment to building tools that are defensible, measurable, scalable, and deeply human. Maria brings a personal lens to her work as the parent of both a neurodiverse teen and young adult. This lived experience informs her commitment to expanding access to effective, inclusive, and empowering immersive social coaching solutions.