RESEARCH INTERESTS

I am a social work scholar and public interest technologist. Combining years of work with immigrant and refugee organizations with training in social work and computational social science, I study mental health, well-being, and service use among immigrants and racial, ethnic, and linguistic minorities, with a focus on language and technology. Specifically, my research examines (a) access to care and support among immigrants and linguistic minorities, with attention to language access and the policies that govern it; (b) the use of digital technology and AI in immigrants’ help-seeking and support; and (c) the adoption of AI in health and social service organizations and in social work practice and education. Besides studying technology in my research, I enjoy programming tools for social impact, in Python for research and in JavaScript and HTML for the web applications on my Data & Tools page.

My first-authored papers have been published in the American Journal of Public Health, Health Services Research, Social Science & Medicine, Psychiatric Services, International Migration Review, and Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. My dissertation was supported and awarded by the Society for Social Work Research, Grand Challenges for Social Work, the American Psychological Association, and New York University. 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, Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, the Michigan Institute for Data and AI in Society (MIDAS), and the Curtis Center for Health Services Research and 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 on research or career questions, and I do not respond to personal inquiries. All views expressed are my own and do not represent my institution.

PROSPECTIVE MENTEES

Prospective PhD students. I take doctoral mentees only when a student’s research interests overlap closely with mine, and that overlap has to include immigrants or refugees as the population of interest. If you plan to study children or older adults in general, I am not the right primary mentor for you, even if you are interested in computational methods, data science, or AI. If your interests do match, please read my notes for prospective PhD students before writing. It covers how advisor matching actually works, what a close fit looks like, funding, and how to strengthen an application, and it will answer most of what you would otherwise be emailing to ask.

RECENT NEWS

• Nov 2026 Talk I’ll be leading an invited workshop, “APIs, Web Scraping, and Geospatial Analysis for Migration Research,” at the Global Migration Institute Winter School at Toronto Metropolitan University (Nov 9–13, 2026, Toronto, ON).
• Oct 2026 Publication My solo-authored paper, “Language access and written health communication: Readability of Medicaid notices of action by primary language, 2021–2022,” has been published in PEC Global!
• Oct 2026 Publication My first-authored paper with Sou Hyun Jang, “Did generative AI narrow the digital divide for immigrants in South Korea? A difference-in-differences study, 2019–2023,” has been accepted to Telematics and Informatics!
• Oct 2026 Publication My first-authored paper with Youngah Kim, executive director of Migration to Asia Peace, “Agentic LLM for Information Access among Refugees: A Field Report from a Resource-Constrained Organization,” has been accepted to the 5th Workshop on NLP for Positive Impact (NLP4PI) at EMNLP 2026 in Budapest!
• Oct 2026 Publication My first-authored paper with Pengyu Chen, an IHPI summer student intern, “The AI Therapist: ChatGPT Therapy Users at the Boundary of Human Therapy, Disillusionment, and AI Companionship on Reddit,” has been accepted to the 5th Workshop on NLP for Positive Impact (NLP4PI) at EMNLP 2026 in Budapest!
• Oct 2026 Publication My first-authored paper with Addie Weaver, “Closing the Urban-Rural Gap in Access to Racially and Ethnically Focused Mental Health Providers: The Role of Telehealth and Interstate Licensing Compacts,” has been accepted to American Journal of Public Health!
• Sep 2026 Publication My first-authored paper with Manvinder Gill, a PhD student in our Joint Doctoral Program in Social Work and Anthropology, “Disaggregating the South Asian Category: Language-Concordant Psychotherapist Availability and Affordability in the United States,” has been accepted to Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities!
• Sep 2026 Talk I joined the Michigan Institute for Data and AI in Society (MIDAS) at U-M as a Faculty Affiliate, and I’m giving a research pitch at the Welcome Back Social and Faculty Research Pitch on Sep 14 (2:00–4:00 PM, Palmer Commons, Great Lakes Room, Ann Arbor).
• Sep 2026 Publication My solo-authored paper, “Proof of citizenship at the point of care: Documentation requests and forgone care among California immigrants, 2019–2022,” has been accepted to Health Services Research!
• Aug 2026 Talk I’ll be presenting “Diversification and Dispersion: A Harmonized District Panel of Immigrant Residence and Residential Diversity in South Korea, 2006–2024” at the READI Student/Early-Career Seminar on Aug 31 (8:30 PM ET, virtual). It’s invite-only.
• Aug 2026 Publication My first-authored paper with Sou Hyun Jang, “How Bridging and Bonding Social Capital Shapes Performance Expectancy of Digital Transformation among Immigrants and Natives,” has been accepted to International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction!
• Aug 2026 Teaching Teaching a new MA-level course, “Technology for Social Good: Innovation and Ethics in Social Impact Leadership,” at U-M School of Social Work.
• Jul 2026 Conference I will be giving a 2-hour preconference session with Cheng Ren (UAlbany), “Web Scraping with Python and LLMs for Social Work Research: Methods, Ethics, and Legal Considerations,” at the SSWR 2027 Annual Conference in San Francisco (Jan 21, 2027, 8:00–10:00 am).
• Jul 2026 Publication My first-authored paper with Jihye Lee and Sou Hyun Jang, “Beyond the Digital Divide: E-Government Services and Subjective Well-Being Among North Korean Refugees and Native-born Koreans During COVID-19,” has been accepted to Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies!
• Jul 2026 Talk I’ll be giving a talk, “Data Visualization for Immigrant Well-being and Access to Care: Immigrant and Refugee Support Dashboard,” at the Grand Challenges for Social Work Cross-Cutting Working Group on Immigration (virtual). You can see more information in the Forced Migration Initiative newsletter.
• Jul 2026 Publication My first-authored teaching note with Shaddy Saba and Lauri Goldkind, “Advancing AI Literacy in Continuing Education for Social Workers: Lessons from a Post-Master Certificate Program on AI and Mental Health,” has been accepted to Journal of Social Work Education!
• Jul 2026 Publication My first-authored paper with Sou Hyun Jang, Donghun Kim, and Eric Fong, “Analyzing Online Migration Forums: An Introduction to Natural Language Processing for International Migration Research,” has been accepted to International Migration Review!
• Jul 2026 Publication My first ACL! My provocation paper with EAAMO working group “Guidelines for Whom? Rethinking AI Ethics in Resource-Constrained Migration Services” has been accepted to the ACL 2026 Workshop on Evaluating AI in Practice. See you in San Diego!
• Jul 2026 Teaching I have been selected for the CSWE Teaching Academy 2026–2027 cohort! As part of the program, I’ll also attend the Technology/AI Institute at the CSWE Annual Conference in Atlanta this October.
• Jun 2026 Conference Attending AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting (May 31–Jun 2) for my first time! Presenting all three chapters of my dissertation on language access in mental health care as both podium and poster.
• Jun 2026 Award Honored to receive the Early Career Abstract Award from the AcademyHealth Mental Health and Substance Use Interest Group!
• Jun 2026 Talk Joined a panel discussion on “AI in Mental Health, Ethics, and Considerations for Clinical Training” at the Society for Digital Mental Health.
• May 2026 Publication My first-authored paper with Soo-Hyun Jang, “Who is Willing to Use AI Mental Health Chatbots? Perceived Impact of AI in Healthcare Predicts Acceptance, with Higher Willingness among Immigrants,” has been accepted to Computers in Human Behavior Reports!
• May 2026 Grant Selected for the Investigating GenAI Teaching & Learning Mini-Grants Program at U-M CLRT! The project explores integrating GenAI use and critical AI literacy in social impact leadership through my Fall 2026 course.
• May 2026 Publication My co-authored paper with Sangpil Youm (UoF), “Beyond Positive or Negative: How Mixed Emotions on Reddit Are Linked to Depressive Symptoms in Asian American Families”, has been accepted to the Digital Minds Workshop at ICWSM 2026 in Los Angeles.
• May 2026 Service Co-organizing (with Lauri Goldkind (Fordham), Cheng Ren (UAlbany)) the SSWR DS/AI SIG Doctoral Student Networking Event (May 18, virtual), jointly hosted with Grand Challenges for Social Work: Harnessing Technology for Social Good. The event brings together doctoral students and early-career scholars at the intersection of AI, data science, and social work. RSVP here.
• May 2026 Talk Giving a talk on technology and generative AI use among immigrant and ethnic minority populations at the inaugural Digital Drop-In session hosted by the Society for Digital Mental Health (May 11, virtual). Excited to be part of the SDMH community! RSVP here.
• May 2026 Training Participating in the IHPI Impact Accelerator Program (May 19–21)! Looking forward to learning how to bring my research on language access and mental health to broader audiences.
• May 2026 Training Participating in the Michigan Road Scholars program (May 4–8). So excited to learn about communities across Michigan firsthand! Also joining Ginsberg Center’s Community-Engaged Learning Design Intensive (May 11–14).
• Apr 2026 Award Honored to receive the NYU University-wide Outstanding Dissertation Award!
• Apr 2026 Award Honored to receive the Robert Moore Award for Outstanding Dissertation from NYU Silver School of Social Work!
• Apr 2026 Talk Giving a talk at Korea University’s Department of Sociology Colloquium on Apr 24 (virtual)! My talk is on applying computational social science methods to immigrant and minority mental health research. The presentation will be in Korean.
• Apr 2026 Conference Presenting at the Rethinking Complex Migration conference at TMU (Apr 15–17)! Our panel is “Emerging Technologies and Human-Computer Interaction for (Im)migration Research.” Excited to share this work alongside my collaborators Jihye Lee (WashU) and Cheng Chow (UT Austin).
• Apr 2026 Conference Giving an oral presentation at All of Us Science Day 2026 (Apr 15, virtual)! This year’s theme is “From Discovery to Impact,” and I am presenting my research on mental health and service utilization among Asian Americans.
• Mar 2026 Publication My paper on BTS fandom communities and mental health support using NLP is accepted to JMIR Infodemiology! Pre-proof version is available here 🙂
• Feb 2026 Publication My two papers on Korean American church leaders and mental health gatekeeper training, with Mustard Seed Generation Research Committee members, have been accepted to Journal of Religion and Health and Pastoral Psychology.
• Jan 2026 Award I have received the SSWR Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award for 2026 for my dissertation, “Unraveling Ethnic Disparities: Spatial and Virtual Access to Mental Health Services among Immigrants with Language Barriers.” I am deeply honored and grateful for the support of my mentors and communities throughout this journey. Please join the award ceremony if your time allows!
• Jan 2026 Teaching I am teaching Data Visualization Applications at U-M SSW in Winter 2026. Excited to be teaching my first course on data science for social work practice and research 🙂
• Jan 2026 Conference Attending SSWR 2026 in Washington, D.C. I’m organizing a workshop on LLMs for social work research and a roundtable on data science in social work. I’m also co-organizing the Data Science and AI SIG with Cheng Ren (UAlbany). Please come say hello at SSWR 🙂
• Jan 2026 Publication My co-authored paper with Michael Park (Rutgers University), “Mental health service use among Filipino American and Korean American young adults during the COVID-19 pandemic,” is published in Journal of Community Psychology!
• Jan 2026 Publication My co-authored paper with Subin Na (UPenn), “Impact of bilingual mental health providers on service utilization among Asian Americans: Moderating role of Medicaid spending,” has been accepted to Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities.
• Jan 2026 Publication My first-authored paper, “Training Computational Social Work Scientists: Lessons from the Summer Institute of Computational Social Science,” has been accepted in Journal of Social Work Education. I am grateful to the SICSS-NYU Silver participants for sharing their experiences.