Recovery doesn't keep office hours.
Neither do we.

The hardest moments happen at 10pm, mid-meal, mid-spiral. Calai is an AI-native recovery ally trained in DBT and RO-DBT, available exactly when your next appointment is not.

Mission Statement

Eating disorders are not a lifestyle choice or a phase. They are serious, complex illnesses with one of the highest mortality rates in all of psychiatry. And yet the majority of people who need treatment never receive it, because of cost, geography, waitlists, and a system stretched far beyond its limits.

Calai exists because that is not acceptable.

Founded by Dr. Danyale McCurdy-McKinnon, a licensed clinical psychologist with over two decades of specialized expertise, Calai bridges the gap between gold-standard clinical care and the real lives people are living right now. Our platform delivers real-time coaching grounded in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and Radically Open DBT (RO-DBT), the most rigorously researched frameworks in the field, through an AI-native experience built with clinical depth that most apps simply do not have.

We are not a wellness app. We are not a symptom tracker. We are a recovery ally, available at the moments that matter most.

MEET THE TEAM

Founder & Chief Clinical Officer

Danyale McCurdy-McKinnon, PhD

Dr. McCurdy-McKinnon is internationally recognized in the field of eating disorders and body image. She brings two decades of expertise to the intersection of psychology and cutting-edge technology. As a licensed clinical psychologist, entrepreneur, and podcaster, she leverages her extensive academic training, natural tech-savviness, and design instinct to revolutionize treatment accessibility. Dr. Dany's unique blend of clinical depth, technological vision, and creative communication positions her at the forefront of AI-driven mental health innovation. Calai is the product of her distinguished career and lived experience as a scientist, clinician, parent, and advocate.

Chief Technology Officer

Mady Mantha

Mady is a veteran in building conversational AI products, with deep knowledge in natural language processing, machine learning, and speech recognition. She holds a degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from Georgetown University. As a leader in product and marketing at Rasa, Mady led the development of industry-leading open source conversational AI tools. At Walmart, she led the team that developed the company’s chatbot, an innovation that was covered by the Wall Street Journal. She later founded Happypillar, a venture-backed AI-native mental health company that serves thousands of parents.

Board of Advisors

Three Pilars of Service

01.

REAL-TIME COACHING

Most eating disorder crises do not happen during business hours. They happen at 10pm, mid-meal, in a parking lot before a dinner you have been dreading for a week. Calai's AI ally Cali is trained on DBT and RO-DBT frameworks that Dr. Dany has used in clinical practice for over 20 years, and Cali is available precisely when you need them. Not tomorrow. Now.

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02.

EDUCATIONAL CONTENT

Understanding your own patterns is part of recovery. Calai's library of DBT and RO-DBT trainings, skills handouts, workshops, and video content was built by a clinician, not a content team. Every resource is grounded in evidence-based frameworks and designed to build skills that translate into real life, not just talking points for your next therapy session.

Library

03.

REAL CONNECTION

AI can do a great deal. It cannot replace the felt sense of being truly seen by another human being. Calai offers weekly live connection with Dr. Dany and a community of people who understand what this is actually like. Because recovery is not a solo project, and solidarity matters.