VP, Medical Affairs & Discovery
Frances Thorndike leads the Medical Affairs and Discovery teams at Pear. She brings over 20 years of experience in technology-delivered behavioral and medical treatments, including developing and evaluating more than a dozen prescription digital therapeutics. Frances worked with a multidisciplinary team to successfully bring the first prescription digital therapeutic for chronic insomnia through the FDA authorization process. She has held leadership roles in discovery, clinical development, medical affairs, and oversight of science at small start-ups in the digital therapeutic space. Prior to Pear, most of her career was spent as a faculty member at the University of Virginia, Center for Behavioral Health and Technology. While there, she was a coinvestigator for multiple National Institutes of Health–funded studies utilizing technology to increase access to effective behavioral treatments. In 2016, she cofounded a company and took on the role of chief science officer, an entity she and her colleagues founded to move evidence-based programs into the real world.
Frances completed her PhD in clinical psychology at American University and a postdoctoral fellowship in behavioral health and technology at the University of Virginia School of Medicine.