Alexander Young
University of California-Los Angeles, CA·Psychology
Getting mental health care often starts with a questionnaire about symptoms, and stops there. Existing digital tools mostly score how severe someone's symptoms are.
- Fields
Psychology
Medicine & Clinical Research
Computer Science
- Topics
mental health
computerized adaptive testing
item response theory
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2027
What they work on
- Assess the commercial translation potential of an interactive patient data tracking platform for mental health through customer discovery and firsthand investigation of the industry ecosystem.
- Evaluate the computerized adaptive testing and item response theory battery, which tailors questions to prior answers, as a way to measure domains of wellbeing in less time than standard symptom checklists.
- Examine the machine-learning referral algorithm that matches individuals to clinical and non-clinical resources, such as therapy, educational videos and peer support, based on their psychometric profile and tracked outcomes.
- Evaluate the use of distributed ledger (Web3) technology to give users control over their own mental health data, so that no party can access it without permission.
More about the research
They rarely assess what a person actually needs, rarely match people to appropriate services, and almost never follow up to see whether anything helped. This project evaluates the commercial translation potential of a software platform intended to close those gaps by testing a person's mental health, recommending resources tailored to their profile, and tracking what happens next.
Why it matters
Many people who need mental health support face a slow, poorly matched path into care, and health systems have little outcome data on what actually works. A platform that assesses needs rather than symptom severity alone, matches people to clinical or peer and educational resources, and records outcomes could lower the barrier to seeking help, reduce wasted steps in the system, and generate real-world evidence on interventions.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Amanda Jensen-Doss
University of Miami, FL·Psychology
Define and evaluate the full range of measurement-based care (MBC) fidelity domains using digital system usage data, self-report, and observer ratings from the COMET trial in community clinics.
Noelle Carlozzi
University of Michigan, MI·Public Health & Epidemiology
Identify the most impactful aspects of financial hardship by conducting semi-structured interviews with family members of people living with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD).
April Thames
University of California-Los Angeles, CA·Psychology
Expand the National Neuropsychology Network with a new Texas clinical research site and enroll over 10,000 additional participants, with emphasis on Black or African American participants and bilingual or monolingual Spanish speakers.
The school
University of California-Los Angeles: 84 labs on PI Pages, $1.9B a year on research, 803 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.