Dartmouth Undergraduate Designs Platform to Minimize Climate Stress and Anxiety

Ceyhun "Jay" Olcan '27 at the United Nations NY Headquarters ECOSOC 2023 event. (Photo by Baha Kesici)

To use the platform, users enter details about their mood, sleep patterns, and stress levels. The system syncs this data with local climate stressors such as heatwaves, and air quality and pressure shifts. Users then receive a climate health resilience score and tips on how to regulate their nervous system. Advice might include breathwork, grounding techniques, or enjoying some stress-reducing humor.

Olcan noted that the connection between climate change and health risks is well-documented. A 2022 Nature Climate Change study linked heatwaves to higher suicide risk, while in 2023, Lancet Planetary Health found air pollution worsens depression. Meanwhile, research in the American Journal of Psychiatry has shown that emergency room mental health visits rise approximately 8% on the hottest days, and Environmental Health Perspectives reported a link between poor air quality and accelerated cognitive decline.

"Breathing dirty air doesn’t just hurt your lungs," Olcan said. "It stresses your brain, your mood, and your resilience. Prevention efforts can save lives."

XClimate has two audiences: individuals and institutions. "For individuals, we give them 'nudges' to prevent problems—things like hydration reminders or breathing exercises that reduce ER visits," Olcan explained. "For institutions, our vision is to create dashboards and alerts so schools and hospitals can anticipate and respond to conditions like heatwaves or poor air quality."

Right now, XClimate is in an early pilot phase across multiple campuses, including Dartmouth, with about 30 students actively using it each week. This fall, the team will expand to a 50-user beta, and within six months they plan to scale to three campuses with 500–1000 active users. By the end of the year, their goal is to have at least 2000 users through a student ambassador program and early institutional partnerships.

"The first version is deliberately text-based because accessibility matters: Every phone can receive a text, but not every student has the space or data to download another app," Olcan said. "Texts also feel immediate, like a friend checking in at the right moment. In parallel, we're building a companion smartphone app that will let individuals track resilience trends while universities and hospitals access predictive dashboards forecasting spikes in anxiety or health risks during heatwaves or poor-air days."

A native of Adana, Turkey, Olcan traces his passion around the climate to when his grandmother fainted during a heatwave. Just 14 years old at the time, he suddenly realized the gravity of the situation. Summers continue to grow hotter, and it's now not uncommon for temperatures to rise over 100 degrees Fahrenheit there.

"My grandmother fainting showed me that climate change isn't abstract," Olcan said. "We measure CO2 and the rising seas, but climate stress shapes our minds and bodies every day too. We should be monitoring that as well."

The incident spurred Olcan into action, and his interest in climate advocacy quickly blossomed. In 2022, he attended the 17th UN Climate Change Conference of Youth in Egypt and the Regional Conference of Youth for the Asia-Pacific region in the Philippines. That same year, Pfizer selected him as one of 50 global scholars to attend the One Young World Summit in Manchester. The scholarship included leadership training, mentoring, and collaboration with Pfizer executives and health experts, preparing participants to design solutions to global health challenges. He has also delivered three TEDx talks—all focused on the climate crisis.

When choosing colleges, Olcan was drawn to Dartmouth's biomedical engineering program. "The program provides a pathway into Dartmouth's Early Assurance Program at Geisel Medical School," he explained. "That creates the option to secure med school admission early while continuing my engineering training." He hopes to eventually pursue a combined MD/MBA to help him scale XClimate successfully.

Currently, he is an undergraduate research assistant at Geisel's AIM HIGH Lab, developing statistical methods to interpret data from smartphones and wearables for mental health assessment. He also enrolled in "Global Health and Society" with Professor Dawn Carey, who, along with Bob Arnot '72, was instrumental in connecting him with Health Tech Without Borders. While there, Olcan worked on developing a language model that provided notifications and guidance on how to improve your diet.

While working on XClimate, Olcan has spent a lot of time in Dartmouth's DALI Lab, where students collaborate on teams to design and build apps, websites, and VR/AR projects. DALI helped prototype the text-message interface, create early app mockups, and test designs with students. Beyond DALI, he worked closely with the Magnuson Center for Entrepreneurship, where mentors helped him refine his business model and prepare for pitch competitions, and joined Magnuson's Social Venture Incubator, which provided a structured environment to test ideas, receive feedback, and set measurable growth milestones.

"Each of these programs gave me something different," Olcan said. "DALI focused on design, Magnuson helped me think like a founder, and the Social Venture Incubator gave me accountability to keep pushing the idea forward. Put together, Dartmouth has been more than a college—it's felt like an early-stage accelerator that gave me the tools, mentors, and peers to build XClimate in real time."

He has also received mentorship from alumni, including Sarah Hoit '88, Chairman of Social Impact Partners, and Kwame Ansah '22, program manager at Magnuson.

One of his favorite courses so far has been "ENGS 21: Introduction to Engineering" with Professor Vicki May, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Engineering Education.

"She was very helpful because she encouraged us to do more than just talk in class," Olcan said. "She knew that we were engineers who wanted to put ideas into action."