Spotlight: Beth LaGrange, PhD, director of behavioral health and engagement

Mental Health Awareness Month gives us space to talk more openly about stress, burnout, and emotional well-being and although May has passed, for Dr. Beth LaGrange, these crucial conversations take place year-round. As director of behavioral health and engagement on Sharecare’s clinical solutions team, Beth leads client-facing webinars, sharing accessible strategies and mindfulness-based tools to support healthier daily habits.

Whether she’s guiding members through their first breathing exercise or building scalable resources for our client partners, Beth brings both clinical precision and lived compassion to everything she does. Her path to Sharecare includes a PhD in psychology; twelve years reforming mental health programming at one of the world’s largest correctional institutions and mental institutions, Rikers Island; and a long-standing relationship with Sharecare’s digital therapeutics—first as a beta tester in 2017, then as a contractor, and now as a leader.

She lives in Brooklyn with her partner Dave (they met working at Rikers!) and two tortoises named Yasin and Sua Sponte. When she’s not leading mindfulness sessions or working on Sharecare’s digital therapeutics, you can find her gardening, traveling, or recharging at the beach.

We hope you’ll take a few minutes to get to know Beth below and join us in celebrating the work she’s doing to make behavioral health tools more accessible for everyone we serve!

Tell us about your role, Beth.

As director of behavioral health and engagement, I work on the clinical solutions team within the  broader population health team. I lead a group of nearly a dozen independent contractors who serve as coaches and community facilitators for our behavioral health digital therapeutics: Unwinding Anxiety, Craving to Quit, Eat Right Now, and Unwinding by Sharecare.

Together, we support engagement through weekly live video sessions that any program member can attend. I facilitate one of those sessions myself, and we also provide demos, build out slide decks, and partner with our account management team to help clients understand what’s possible. The client webinars I host give me a chance to go deeper with the members. Most people don’t realize what these tools can do until they see them in action. Once they do, they want to keep going.

Can you tell us more about what you help these members learn?

In the blog post I wrote for Mental Health Awareness Month, I shared how our solutions often help people reconnect with what they already know. During sessions, participants will mention how they manage stress—things like walking, praying, gardening, or sitting quietly—and we’re able to help them reflect and recognize that these activities aren’t just habits, they’re useful tools. That moment of recognition can be really powerful.

These programs aren’t about replacing what people do. Instead, they offer structure to support and strengthen what’s already working for our members. In one of our webinars, we closed with a five-finger breathing exercise. For many people, it was their first time practicing mindfulness. You could feel the shift—just having a moment to pause and notice was meaningful.

What are some of the biggest challenges you face on the job?

Chasing a moving target while adapting to change. The job is always evolving and priorities shift depending on what is needed. Every day is different, but that’s also what keeps it interesting.

My career at Sharecare has changed over the years, and I was excited when digital therapeutics became part of my job again. I first got involved with Sharecare as a beta tester for Unwinding Anxiety in 2017. Then I supported the apps in a few part-time contractor roles, before officially joining full-time in January 2023. 

Where were you working before Sharecare?

I worked for 12 years at Rikers Island Correctional Facility as associate director of mental health. I developed and led mindfulness and wellness programs for medical staff, correction officers, and inmates.

While I was there, I helped implement a rewards-based behavioral treatment program to replace punitive segregation. Everyone knows that isolation isn’t good for anyone’s mental health. I was surprised by how well the inmate population responded to meditation. Instead of solitary confinement, participants could earn increased time out of their cells by engaging in group sessions.

For those with a history of violent behavior, we had to take precautions. Some participants did yoga while handcuffed to the wall. Partly for their own safety, and often to prevent harm between individuals in the group. One of our yoga instructors actually developed a full practice they could do in that position. It was one of the most inspiring things I’ve seen.

What’s something few people know about you?

I was in a Hugh Grant movie—Mickey Blue Eyes. I played a jogger in Central Park who does a double take. As Hugh Grant’s starting mark tape on the sidewalk became progressively dusty between takes, he was having trouble finding it, and I made a dumb joke that the crew was moving it on purpose. He was nice enough to laugh.

I actually have a bachelor’s degree in drama and lived in New York City for a while doing off Broadway theater and some movie extra work. I didn’t start toward psychology seriously until I was almost 30. I earned my PhD in psychology from Vanderbilt. The program was very research-focused, and we mostly studied depression, so it’s not directly related to what I’m doing now, but it gave me a very strong foundation.

What’s your ideal way to spend a day off?

The beach anywhere is pretty much my best day. It’s one of the best ways I know to recharge. I also love to travel, but even close to home, there are great options. Many people don’t realize that if you head east from New York City, Long Island has some really lovely beaches.

What’s on your travel bucket list?

I’ve been to five out of seven continents, so I’d love to make it to the other two I haven’t visited. Seeing Antarctica and Australia are definitely on the list. It’s hard to pick a favorite destination, but I most recently went to Iceland in February. The photos of Aurora Borealis there look amazing, but in person it doesn’t look quite the same to the naked eye.

Last fall, I went on a safari in Tanzania and saw a rhinoceros up close. That was probably the coolest, because there are so few of them and we didn’t know if we’d get to see one. We ended up spotting it right by the road through the park, and it was just incredible.

Do you have any pets?

We’re fostering two tortoises right now that we share caretaking duties with on and off, with a friend. One is an 8-year old Greek tortoise named Yasin. The other is a baby Hermann’s tortoise named Sua Sponte. It’s a Latin legal term that basically means the judge is doing what they want, irrespective of what the lawyers are requesting. It kind of fits his personality.