Dr. Al-Dajani’s research examines the momentary risk and protective factors of suicidal thoughts using intensive longitudinal designs. More recently, she has begun to examine suicide risk and protective factors in adolescents and emerging adults of diverse backgrounds. Her recently funded AFSP grant focuses on momentary risk and protective factors of suicidal ideation in emerging adults who recently visited psychiatric emergency services - in this study, questions related to experiences of discrimination are included to better understand the relationship between day-to-day experiences of discrimination and momentary suicidal ideation in minoritized populations.

Dr. Alvarez's research and clinical work focus on improving adolescent behavioral health outcomes, with an emphasis on Latinx and immigrant youth and their families. She has particular interests in the prevention of suicidal behavior and in the integration of behavioral health care across clinical and community settings serving youth. Dr. Alvarez is the principal investigator of an NIMH-funded career development award that focuses on using family-based strategies to prevent suicide among immigrant-origin youth. She is also co-principal investigator of a mixed methods participatory research project that uses the PhotoVoice method to elicit youth perspectives on their communities, and she collaborates on multiple studies focused on identifying and reducing behavioral health disparities.

Dr. Andover’s research focuses on the development and evaluation of treatments for non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) and suicide, psychophysiological processes in self-injury, and factors that contribute to the severity of NSSI and the expression of specific forms of self-injury.  As a cognitive-behavioral therapist, Dr. Andover uses empirically-supported techniques to treat clients ranging in age from childhood to adulthood and integrates research and treatment through treatment development and outcome research. ​​

Dr. Areba’s research focuses on addressing ethnoracial inequities in adolescent and young adult mental health outcomes and coping. Her work is centered on racially minoritized young populations, with a special emphasis on those with refugee and immigrant backgrounds and Black groups. She examines how societal and individual level factors influence vulnerability to suicide behavior, including sociocultural experiences and interpretations of illness, discrimination and public policies. She uses community-based and survey based methods to conduct her research. 

Dr. Au's research foci are as follows: (1) expanding the evidence base of suicide-focused psychological interventions (e.g., CAMS, DBT-A), (2) identifying moderators and clinical subtypes that predict treatment outcomes, and (3) evaluating novel approaches that may help prevent youth suicides (e.g., Family Connections -- Managing Stress and Trauma Recovery). She is particularly passionate about developing clinical decision-making guidelines grounded in scientific evidence to optimize triage care and treatment assignment. 

Dr. Auerbach’s research is committed to improving our understanding of suicidal thoughts and behaviors in adolescents and young adults. His research is multidisciplinary and utilizes a multimodal approach for assessment (e.g., cross-national epidemiological surveys, real-time monitoring, laboratory-based experiments, EEG/ERP, MRI) to determine why self-injurious and suicidal behaviors develop, what mechanisms facilitate the transition from suicidal thoughts to behaviors, and how we can improve prevention and intervention efforts. As a whole, the research aims to better understand the putative mechanisms that may improve early identification of and treatment for suicidal behaviors. ​​

Dr. Baiden’s research focuses on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), suicidal behaviors, and adolescent health risk behaviors. Using socio-ecological theory as a conceptual framework, Dr. Baiden seeks to: 1) investigate the mechanism linking ACEs to suicidal behaviors among adolescents; 2) investigate whether different types of ACEs predict different types of suicidal behaviors; 3) identify adolescent health risk behaviors that facilitate the onset of suicidal behaviors; and 4) develop school-based behavioral interventions to prevent suicidal behaviors among adolescents. Drawing on minority stress theory and intersectionality theory, Dr. Baiden is also interested in understanding the intersection of sexual orientation and race/ethnicity on suicidal behaviors.

Dr. Berk’s research seeks to contribute to the literature on effective psychosocial interventions for suicidal youth, as well as to provide high quality, empirically informed training in suicide assessment and treatment to therapists in training and to mental health professionals in the community. Her research, teaching, and clinical service goals are to: a) develop empirically-supported interventions for adolescent suicide attempters, b) disseminate these interventions into the community, c) increase the quality of service provided to suicidal patients by the mental health professionals she has trained (and indirectly, as those she has trained go on to train others), and ultimately, d) prevent adolescent suicide and suicide attempts.

Dr. Bettis’s research seeks to elucidate key mechanisms of efficacious interventions for self-injurious thoughts and behaviors in adolescents. Her program of research includes theoretical and empirical investigations of coping and emotion regulation processes in youth and families. This work aims to both improve existing family-based interventions for adolescent self-injurious thoughts and behaviors, and to inform the development of novel interventions targeting emotion regulation processes. Dr. Bettis is also interested in improving our understanding of self-injurious thoughts and behaviors in LGBTQ+ youth, as well as how interventions can best serve these youth. ​​​​

Dr. Biernesser’s research focuses on developing digital mental health interventions to reduce the impact of negative online experiences and prevent suicide risk among adolescents, particularly adolescents who are underserved within traditional mental health services. She has focused an independent line of research on examining ways to understand and mitigate the impact of negative social media experiences, particularly focusing on cyberbullying given its linkage to suicide risk among youth. She is PI of a K23 early career award focused on developing and testing a digital suicide prevention intervention for underserved youth who have experienced cyberbullying. She is also PI of an Early Career Researcher Innovation Grant funded by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, focused on developing a digital suicide prevention for LGBTQ+ youth. Additionally, she is co-leading a study that aims to reduce depression and suicide risk among adolescents who have had online victimization experiences, particularly Black/African American and LGBTQ+ youth, as well as a methods innovation project studying the feasibility and acceptability of using social media-based algorithms to detect cyberbullying and suicide risk among adolescents.

Dr. Blumberg’s research seeks to understand the causes of mood and related disorders across the lifespan and of suicide risk. Her program focuses on multimodal neuroimaging research integrated with translational research approaches to identify brain circuitry differences and generate strategies to target them for early detection, interventions and prevention. This has included research on differences in the structure and function of frontal systems in adolescents and young adults with mood disorders and suicide thoughts and behaviors (STBs). She is also investigating brain circuitry associated with STBs across mood and psychotic disorders in adults. She and her team are studying a psychobehavioral telehealth intervention “BE-SMART” (Brain Emotion Circuitry Targeted Self-Monitoring and Regulation Therapy) to improve emotion regulation through the regularization of daily rhythms.

Dr. Boyd’s research focuses on maternal depression, especially among ethnically diverse women, and the prevention of depression in their offspring, who are at increased for suicidal behaviors. She has expanded this research to focus on assessment and risk and protective factors for youth depressive disorders and suicide.  As a clinical psychologist, she provides empirically supported interventions to youth with depression and suicidal behaviors and is involved with quality improvement projects with these patients for dissemination of knowledge to inform practice.

Dr. Franz’s research broadly aims to better understand, predict and prevent suicide and other self-injurious thoughts and behaviors. A unifying theme in his work is investigating why adolescents and young adults engage in self-injurious thoughts and behaviors in response to negative emotions. As a postdoctoral fellow working with Montefiore/Einstein’s Center for Health Equity, Dr. Franz also examines societal marginalization as a key risk factor for suicide and other mental health concerns. He utilizes a wide range of research methods, including laboratory behavioral tasks, ecological momentary assessment, and online social media interventions.

Dr. Gaylord-Harden’s research focuses on the impact of exposure to community violence and traumatic loss on mental health functioning among Black adolescents and families in disinvested, urban communities. She has expanded this research program to examine the impact of traumatic stressors and posttraumatic stress symptoms on suicidal ideation among Black adolescents.  She is also interested in the application and examination of theoretical frameworks of suicidality that are culturally and contextually relevant for Black youth in communities systematically impacted by violence and associated traumatic stressors.

Dr. Glenn's research aims to advance understanding of the development of suicidal and self-injurious thoughts and behaviors (SITBs) to identify those at greatest risk for SITBs and to develop interventions that can more effectively reduce risk for these behaviors. Given that SITBs have their initial onset during adolescence, and rates of SITBs increase drastically during this developmental period, she is particularly focused on understanding the etiology, improving detection and prediction, and enhancing treatments for SITBs in youth. Dr. Glenn uses a multimodal approach to examine the complex interplay among risk factors across self-report, behavioral, and psychophysiological units of analysis, acquired using a range of techniques, including validated clinical interviews, lab-based paradigms, and ecological momentary assessments, in both cross-sectional and prospective designs. 

Dr. Gulbas utilizes advanced qualitative and ethnographic research methods to explore the links among culture, family dynamics, and disparities in suicidal behaviors among Latina teens. Through the lens of medical anthropology, Dr. Gulbas’s research has focused on the subtle, but significant, cultural variations (e.g., Latino/American; country of origin/country of destination; peer/family) that shape family dynamics and influence the onset of suicidal behaviors. To date, her work has been published in journals including Social Science & Medicine, Qualitative Health Research, and Family Process.

Dr. Hamilton’s research seeks to identify modifiable risk factors for the onset and worsening of adolescent suicidal ideation and behavior in everyday life. Applying a developmental psychopathology approach, her research centers on three questions: 1) Which adolescents are most at risk for first onset and worsening of suicidality?, 2) When are adolescents most at risk and through what modifiable processes?, and 3) How does technology both impact risk and improve our ability to capture these risk processes in real time? Integrating these questions, she is currently the PI on a NIMH-funded career development award that examines social media and sleep disruption in risk for suicidality among adolescents using an intensive monitoring design. Dr. Hamilton’s research aims to harness the power of advancing technology to better identify and detect suicide risk in real time to improve suicide prevention among diverse youth.

Dr. Hausmann-Stabile’s research examines mental health disparities in the U.S. and Latin America, with a focus on girls’ suicidal behaviors. An expert in qualitative research methods, she has contributed to universal and group-specific issues that explain Latina teens’ suicidal behaviors; family dynamics of suicidal girls; acculturation and development; and issues of culturally competent service-delivery. Her next steps are to: (a) translate her work into prevention and treatment strategies for these vulnerable girls; (b) advance the science of transnational prevention and treatment dissemination by understanding the processes involved in cultural adaptation and implementation of evidence-based practices for suicidal children across Latin America; and (c) generate public health strategies addressing suicidal behaviors among children in Latin America.

Dr. Holmes studies health disparities among autistic adolescents and adults. Given the prevalence of suicidal thoughts and behaviors among autistic individuals, she is particularly focused on populations that are at particularly risk, including sexually and gender diverse individuals.

Dr. Hughes’s research explores the efficacy and effectiveness of psychosocial treatments for building resilience, the prevention and treatment of youth depression, and addressing suicide in youth. She is a Co-Investigator on the NIMH P50 Center for Accelerating Suicide Prevention in Real-world Settings. She is also an Adjunct Associate Professor in Psychiatry at the UT Southwestern Center for Depression Research and Clinical Care, supporting the CDRC Risk and Resilience Network, which includes the dissemination and implementation of the Youth Aware of Mental Health (YAM) program. Dr. Hughes is a co-developer of two evidence-based treatments, one for relapse prevention of depression in children and adolescents and one utilizing family-based CBT for suicidal youth and their parents. Her work has also focused on universal suicide prevention in youth through a school-based mental health promotion and suicide prevention program called Youth Aware of Mental Health (YAM).  She is an international trainer for YAM, working with the intervention developers to disseminate this program in the United States (Texas and Montana), Australia, and India.  

Dr. Danzo’s research and clinical work center around improving effectiveness of mental health interventions for youth and families, and improving access to care for underserved populations. Her current work focuses on identifying modifiable risk and protective factors that impact suicide risk and engagement in other risk behaviors, and using this to inform the development an adaptation of suicide prevention services that can be accessed in widely accessed service settings, such as primary care. Additionally, she takes a user-centered design approach in her work, partnering with youth, caregivers, and providers to improve interventions, while addressing gaps in care.

Dr. James’ research interests lie at the intersection of clinical psychology and social-cognitive-affective neuroscience with a focus on self-injurious thoughts and behaviors (suicidal and non-suicidal) during childhood and adolescence. She uses a wide range of methodologies, including neuroimaging, psychophysiological, and behavioral measures to examine how social communication during parent-teen/peer interactions and affect-biased information processing contribute to risk. Ultimately, Dr. James strives to use these assessment tools to take a multi-modal, integrative approach to 1) identify mechanisms underlying the development, maintenance, and recurrence of suicidal thoughts and behaviors and non-suicidal self-injury in youth, and 2) translate these mechanisms into specific and novel targets for prevention and intervention efforts.

Dr. Jeglic’s research interests are primarily focused on issues broadly related to sex offender assessment, treatment, public policy, and suicide risk assessment. She has received grants from the National Institute of Justice and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention to fund her research.  She has published over 85 peer reviewed articles and book chapters. Dr. Jeglic has recently published a book entitled Sexual Offending: Evidence Based Legislation and Prevention.  She is an Associate Editor of the Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, is on the editorial board of Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, and is a consulting editor of Archives of Suicide Research.

Dr. Katz’s research is largely devoted to the health and wellbeing of youth who emancipate from the foster care system, and the ways that these youth could be best supported. She is currently focused on how best to assess mental illness and suicidal ideation in this group of youth.

Dr. Keum's research focuses on racism as a risk factor for detrimental health behaviors (e.g., suicidal ideation, self-injurious behaviors) among racial/ethnic minority youths and emerging adults. In particular, he examines how online racism and race-related online victimization are linked to suicide risk in today's digitally-driven social landscape, as well as the development of digitally- and culturally-relevant interventions. As a social justice-oriented scientist-practitioner, Dr. Keum also draws from his clinical experience to conduct research that improves psychotherapy practice and informs advocacy for marginalized communities.

Dr. King’s research focuses on the development of culturally tailored and evidence-based practices for youth suicide risk screening, assessment, and intervention. She has provided leadership for multiple federally funded research projects, including the Youth-Nominated Support Team Intervention for Suicidal Adolescents, Emergency Department Screen for Teens at Risk for Suicide, and 24-Hour Risk for Suicide Attempts in a National Cohort of Adolescents. In addition, Dr. King has provided testimony in the U.S. Senate on youth suicide prevention and is a Past President of the American Association of Suicidology, the Association of Psychologists in Academic Health Centers, and the Society for Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology. She is a recent past member of the National Advisory Mental Health Council (NIMH Council).

Dr. Molock’s research focuses on studying the risk and protective factors associated with suicide ideation, suicide intent, and suicide attempts in African American adolescents and college students.  She has developed suicide prevention programs for youth in faith-based communities.  Her early work focused on trying to more clearly identify what role cultural factors play in suicidal behaviors among African American youth. The field of suicidology has generally assumed that suicidal behaviors are universally expressed across all cultural groups or made cross cultural comparisons without examining what particular aspects of culture (e.g., acculturation, ethnic identity, and spirituality) may increase or decrease risk for suicide in a particular cultural group. This work has documented that cultural factors, specifically religiosity, serve as protective factors against suicide for Black youth and has encouraged the field to directly assess specific cultural factors and the role they may serve as either risk or protective factors for suicide.Dr. Molock also done research on help-seeking behaviors, which has been foundational in the development of a suicide prevention program for Black youth in predominantly Black churches. This research has helped insure that the suicide prevention programs for Black youth is contextualized for this at risk population. Her dual disciplines as a clinical/community psychologist and as an ordained pastor have enabled her to bridge the research and church communities by developing interventions that are accessible and sustainable because they are delivered in a community context that has historically been a source of support to the Black community. 

Dr. Meca’s research focus is on identity development across various domains (i.e., ethnic/racial, academic, military, and parental identity) and the links between identity and psychosocial functioning (e.g., well-being, internalizing and externalizing symptoms, etc.) and health risk behaviors (e.g., alcohol use, risk-sex taking behavior, etc.). Although Dr. Meca’s research has focused on identity across various domains, the majority of his research has focused cultural identity, acculturation, and nativist stressors that contribute to mental health among Latinx populations, and more broadly, among ethnic/racial minorities.

Dr. Meza’s research focuses on understanding the developmental pathways to self-injurious thoughts and behaviors (SITBs) among adolescents and emerging adults. In particular, her work focuses on understanding sociocultural risk and protective processes related to SITBs among justice impacted Latinx youth. Clinically, Dr. Meza also provides bilingual evidence-based care to youth that engage in SITBs. Dr. Meza is currently collaborating on several projects focusing on risk detection and interventions for SITBs among adolescents and young adults. 

Dr. Miller’s work focuses on the neurobiology of self-injurious thoughts and behaviors among youth. Additionally, he is particularly interested in within-person models of proximal risk for self-injurious thoughts and behaviors. Dr. Miller’s lab has a specific focus on how early childhood adversity influences brain development and subsequently contributes risk for self-injurious thoughts and behaviors among adolescents. Dr. Miller’s research combines knowledge from developmental psychopathology with developmental cognitive neuroscience to identify neural mechanisms of risk for suicide and self-injury. His studies include lab based assesments as well as longitudinal designs to understand trajectories of suicide risk.

Dr. Miranda studies why young people think about and attempt suicide in a way that can inform assessment, treatment, and prevention. Her research has four broad goals: 1) to study the link between repetitive thinking, hopelessness, and suicidal ideation; 2) to understand what young people actually think about when they think about suicide, the form these thoughts take, and whether there are subtypes of suicidal thoughts that can be used to predict who is likely to make a future suicide attempt; 3) to understand the interplay between culture and cognition in risk for suicidal ideation and attempts; and 4) to develop laboratory-based methods of shifting cognitions that give rise to suicidal ideation. Dr. Miranda also has over 10 years of experience directing federally funded programs to increase the diversity of the US biomedical workforce. She is the founder of the Youth Suicide Research Consortium.

Dr. Morris addresses the study of adolescent suicide from a developmentally-informed, interdisciplinary, population-health perspective, partnering with public agencies. She focuses on the places where adolescents already are (schools, primary care) and leverages trusted sources of support (peers, parents, trusted adults). With attention to the unique developmental needs of adolescents and guided by youth themselves, her focus is to strengthen bridges, integrating prevention and intervention, within and across the places where youth are situated. Her work draws from the “Swiss cheese model” for industrial accidents (recognizing that each place has gaps but their layering can support more kids at risk than when each exists on its own). A suicide loss survivor (having lost her 17-year-old daughter to suicide in 2019), she brings lived experience to her research on youth suicide prevention.

Dr. Mueller’s research examines how social relationships and social contexts shape adolescent health and wellbeing over the transition to adulthood, with a focus on adolescent suicidality. Her current project investigates (1) how suicidal behaviors and emotional distress spread between youth, (2) what factors facilitate the formation of suicide clusters in schools and communities, and (3) how social environments in communities, schools, families, and among peers, contribute to youth’s vulnerability to suicide and emotional distress. She is also interested in how social organizations (like schools and hospitals) shape social relationships and social interactions in ways that have implications for the production of inequality and the health and wellbeing of individual members.

Dr. Rasmus’ research focuses on understanding the intersections between culture, health, and well-being, and the role of resilience and protective factors in reducing health disparities among American Indian/Alaska Native peoples. Her expertise is in social and behavioral sciences and she has a broad background in medical anthropology and psychology with specific expertise in the translation of cultural knowledge and practice into health interventions. She utilizes tribal participatory and collaborative approaches to engage AI/AN communities in quantitative, quasi-experimental, and mixed-method research designs while remaining responsive and respectful to cultural and social norms and practices.

Dr. Reyes-Portillo’s research interests include examining the use of digital health technology to reduce mental health disparities among racial/ethnic minority youth suffering from internalizing disorders, as well as to improve safety planning among youth at risk for suicide attempts. She also examines ways to improve the implementation and dissemination of evidence-based practices in schools and community clinics. Dr. Reyes-Portillo has been successful in obtaining external funding and has published in such journals as Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Cognitive and Behavioral Practice.

Dr. Ross’s research focuses on primarily on the development and testing of family-based preventive interventions that reduce suicide risk in adolescents. Her work also focuses on adapting evidence-based preventive interventions for use in a variety of settings across the health care continuum and identifying effective dissemination and implementation processes and mechanisms that increase the uptake of these evidence-based practices.

Dr. Scott’s research focuses on suicide prevention of youth and young adults.  Her work extends from evaluations of school-based screening for suicide-risk to evaluations of educational approaches and programs for suicide prevention.  Dr. Scott has published extensively in the area of suicide prevention, both contributing original research as well as educational material.  She is a co-author of the second book of the Lifelines Trilogy, entitled Lifelines Intervention: Helping Students at Risk for Suicide, which takes a whole school approach to suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention.  Dr. Scott has participated in several national working groups on Upstream Suicide Prevention and Developmentally-appropriate Warning Signs for Suicide Prevention.  Beyond research and curriculum development, Dr. Scott has trained mental health professionals, faculty, and students in suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention strategies.

Dr. Sheftall’s research focuses on the discovery of developmental and familial mechanisms (e.g., behavioral, neurocognitive, parenting) in early to middle childhood that confer vulnerability for future suicidal behavior. Her current NIMH-funded research investigates early vulnerability factors in youth with a parental history of suicidal behavior. It is Dr. Sheftall’s hope that her research will help frame targets for intervention to reduce the incidence of a first suicide attempt in youth at high risk.

Dr. Singer's clinical and research interests focus on interventions for suicidal and cyberbullied youth; service access and service utilization; and use of technology in education and clinical practice. He is author over 75 publications, including Suicide in Schools: A Practitioner's Guide to Multi-level Prevention, Assessment, Intervention, and Postvention. He is a founding member of #SPSM, an online suicide prevention social media community. He is an Associate Professor at Loyola University Chicago's School of Social Work, Past-President of the American Association of Suicidology, an Advisory Board Member for the JED Foundation and Suicide Prevention Research Center, and co-lead for the Social Work Grand Challenge initiative "Harness Technology for Social Good." He is the founder and host of the award winning Social Work Podcast (www.socialworkpodcast.com), the first podcast by and for social workers.