Nari Yoo

Nari Yoo, PhD, LSW, is an assistant professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Michigan and a scholar in the NIH-funded Michigan Program for Advancing Cultural Transformation (M-PACT). Her research advances behavioral health equity and digital well-being among immigrants and ethnic minority populations through three interconnected areas: (1) macro- and meso-level factors, including institutional conditions and service system characteristics, that shape disparities in mental health and service use, (2) the role of technology, such as telehealth, mobile health and AI-enabled tools, in expanding culturally and linguistically responsive models of care, and (3) the use of data science and computational methods such as natural language processing, geospatial analytics and multilevel modeling in the study of social work and mental health services.

Her first-authored papers have been published in journals such as Psychiatric Services, Social Science & Medicine, Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research, and Digital Health, and her dissertation project has been supported by organizations such as the American Psychological Association and the Grand Challenges for Social Work. At New York University, she has co-organized the Summer Institute in Computational Social Science (SICSS)–NYU Silver, directed a continuing education certificate program on AI and mental health, and taught graduate and doctoral courses on research methods, statistics and artificial intelligence in social work. She serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Technology in Human Services and collaborates with community-based organizations on projects related to immigrant and diaspora mental health. She is also a faculty member/affiliate with the e-Health and Artificial Intelligence (e-HAIL) initiative and the Curtis Center for Health Services Research & Innovation. Yoo holds a PhD in Social Work from New York University and master’s and bachelor’s degrees in social welfare and sociology from Ewha Women's University.