Welcome!

Hi! I am Nari. I am an Assistant Professor of Social Work and a Scholar of the Michigan Program for Advancing Cultural Transformation at the University of Michigan.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

My research aims to advance behavioral health equity and digital well-being among immigrants, refugees, and racial and ethnic minority populations through data-driven and computational approaches. My work focuses on three areas: (1) macro- and meso-level factors—such as institutional contexts, policy environments, and service system characteristics—that shape mental health and service use; (2) the role of digital technologies, including telehealth, mobile health, and AI-enabled tools, in expanding culturally and linguistically responsive models of care; and (3) the integration of computational approaches in social work and mental health research, such as natural language processing, geospatial analytics, big data analysis, and multilevel modeling.

My first-authored papers have been published in Psychiatric Services, Social Science & Medicine, Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research, and Digital Health. My dissertation was supported by the Grand Challenges for Social Work, the American Psychological Association, and the NYU Migration Network. I have received national awards and scholarships in Korea from the Migration Research and Training Centre, the Ministry of Health and Welfare, and the Ministry of Education. Outside of research, I serve as a board member of Migration to Asia Peace and a research committee member of Mustard Seed Generation.

At the University of Michigan, I am a faculty affiliate of the e-Health and Artificial Intelligence (e-HAIL) initiative and the Curtis Center for Health Services Research & Innovation. At NYU, I was selected as the inaugural predoctoral fellow at the Constance and Martin Silver Center on Data Science and Social Equity and co-organized the Summer Institute in Computational Social Science (SICSS)–NYU Silver, focusing on data science for social good. I hold a PhD in Social Work from New York University.

Disclaimer: This blog is for general informational purposes only. I cannot provide individual consulting or respond to personal inquiries. All views expressed are my own and do not represent my institution.

RECENT NEWS

2026
  • Jan 2026. I plan to attend the SSWR 2026 in Washington, D.C. I organize the workshop titled “Implementing AI-Based Large Language Models for Social Work Research: Foundations, Local Deployment of Open Source Models, and Practical Considerations,” and the roundtable “Navigating the Intersection of Data Science and Social Work Research: Perspectives from Early to Senior Career Researchers.” I also present other papers in progress.
2025
2024
2023