Welcome to my website! I am Nari Yoo, a PhD Candidate in the Silver School of Social Work at New York University. As a lifelong blogger from South Korea (with 2 million visits), I use this website to share tips and strategies I learned in graduate school.
RESEARCH INTERESTS
My research agenda progresses through three interconnected areas: (1) macro- and meso-level factors influencing mental health disparities among immigrant and refugee communities, including investigating systemic barriers to accessing and utilizing mental health services, (2) the role of technology in improving mental health service access and delivery for these minoritized populations, and (3) data science methodologies, such as artificial intelligence and computational social science techniques, to social work research. My research has been published in journals such as Psychiatric Services, Social Science & Medicine, Journal of Affective Disorders, and Digital Health. My research has been awarded and funded by Grand Challenges for Social Work, the American Psychological Association, NYU Migration Network, Migration Research and Training Centre, and the Ministry of Education in South Korea.
My methodological interests encompass applying structural equation modeling and leveraging computational social science approaches to social work research, such as using text-as-data and big data sources. At NYU, I was appointed an inaugural predoctoral fellow at the Constance and Martin Silver Center on Data Science and Social Equity. I organized the Summer Institute in Computational Social Science (SICSS)-NYU Silver with the theme of data science for social good.
You can refer to my curriculum vitae for professional information and my bio page for more personal information 🙂
** I am on the academic job market for the 2024-2025 academic year seeking tenure-track social work (or adjacent fields) faculty positions & postdocs. Please find my research and teaching page for more information.
RECENT NEWS
2024
- Oct 2024: My first-authored paper on structural xenophobia has been selected for 2024 APHA PHSW Student Paper Award 🙂 Delighted to be connected with the public health social work community in Minneapolis.
- Aug 2024: I am selected as a recipient of the 2024 APA Dissertation Research Award! You can find more information about my dissertation project here.
- Aug 2024: My co-authored paper, “The Impact of Collaborative Documentation on Person-Centered Care: A Textual Analysis of Clinical Notes,” was published in the JMIR Medical Informatics.
- Aug 2024: My first-authored paper, “The Unequal Weight of COVID-19 pandemic: National Trends in Body Mass Index among Korean Adolescents by Immigrant-origin and Gender from 2013 to 2022,” was published in the International Journal of Adolescence and Youth.
- Jul 2024: My first-authored paper, “Remittance as Reactive Transnationalism: The Role of Perceived Unfairness among Immigrants in South Korea,” was published in the International Migration.
- Jul 2024: The poster of my co-authored paper, “Predicting Depressive Symptoms through Emotion Pairs within Asian American Families,” was presented to the International Conference on Computational Social Science (IC2S2) 2024. Excited to connect with other computational social scientists!
- May 2024: I am selected as an NYU Urban Doctoral Fellow for 2024-2025. I am so excited to learn more about the applications of urban science in behavioral health research and connect with other scholars studying urban issues.
- May 2024: My book chapter, “Applying to Graduate School: Tips and Strategies for BIPOC and International Students,” is now available in the book “Transforming Careers in Mental Health for BIPOC: Strategies to Promote Healing and Social Change,” edited by my advisor Dr. Doris Chang.
- Apr 2024: The part of my dissertation study has been selected for the special issue titled “Research Methods for Enhancing the Study of Race and Antiracism in Social Work,” of the Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research (JSSWR) for the methodology report describing the use of data science methods for social work research.
- Apr 2024: I contributed to a blog post on “Seeking Therapy as an International Student” for Mustard Seed Generation, which is a non-profit organization where I have been volunteering as a research committee member.
- Apr 2024: I am awarded the “Diane Greenstein Memorial Fellowship,” selected as an exemplary dissertation proposal by PhD Program committee at NYU Silver School of Social Work. Please find the Student News covered by our program for more information.
- Mar 2024: My first-authored paper titled “Does social empathy moderate fear-induced minority blaming during the COVID-19 pandemic?” was accepted to Social Science & Medicine. You can find a summary of the article in Korean from Korea University News.
- Feb 2024: I am awarded the C.V. Starr Fund for A/P/A Research Grant! This grant will be used for a community advisory board for my dissertation project.
- Jan 2024: I attended the SSWR 2024 Conference and presented the report on organizing the SICSS for social work doctoral students.
- Jan 2024: I am delighted to share that I have been selected as an awardee of the Grand Challenges for Social Work Doctoral Award! My work is also supported by the NYU Migration Network Graduate Student Award. Please find this Student News by NYU Silver for more information on my dissertation research.
2023
- Sep 2023: My recent paper on “Mapping Anti-Asian Xenophobia” was covered by the NYU Press Release and mentioned in AsAmNews and Washington Square News with my interview!
- Aug 2023: In 2023, I was selected as a fellow of the NIDA-funded Substance Abuse Research Education & Training (SARET) program at NYU School of Medicine. I have been participating in “Smartphones for Opioid Addiction Recovery (SOAR)” project by conducting interviews with practitioners.
- Jul 2023: I am officially an All But Dissertation (ABD); I am going to work on my dissertation on the language access to mental health services among Hispanic and Asian immigrants for the next two years!
- Jun 2023: I organized SICSS (Summer Institute in Computational Social Science)-NYU Silver with a focus on data science for social equity in June 2023.
- Jan 2023: My blog post on how to use the
getcensuspackage in Stata is mentioned by StataNews!