Our Research

Psycho-Oncology

Exploring LLM’s capabilities by combining structured and unstructured data from EHR to mitigate the risk of depression or anxiety for cancer patients. Leading Investigators: Runa Bhaumik and John Galvin

Harnessing AI for Accessing NIDILRR-Funded Research and TDTA: The “Discover” Chatbot

The proposed project will design and implement a customized Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbot called Discover, to both personalize the search experience and efficiently guide users to each RRTC’s high-quality information.

NIH               90RTHF0009-01-00             PI: Judith Cook                                          09/01/2025 – 08/31/30

MindWatch: Advancing Mental Well-being with State-of-the-art Transformer Models, Knowledge Graphs, and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) Model, A proof of concept study utilizing Social Media Texts

  • This project explores the potential of NLP and AI tools in revolutionizing suicide detection by harnessing the power of language analysis using Reddit Posts
  • This is a proof-of-concept study, where Dr. Bhaumik is the leading investigator

From Health Disparity to Health Empowerment: Utilizing Natural Language Processing to Drive Community Health Equity.

AIM-AHEAD Fellowship Program in Leadership award   09/15/23-06/14/24

  • Identify and categorize community-specific social determinants of health, including cultural, economic, and psychosocial factors from the surveys
  • Utilize NLP-derived insights to analyze health disparities, quantify findings within target communities, and provide actionable recommendations for the Foundation and stakeholders.
  • Dr. Bhaumik serves as a mentor through the AIM-AHEAD Leadership Fellowship program

Neurodevelopmental Mechanisms Underlying the Onset of Depression among At-Risk Youth: The Role of Dysregulation in the Negative Valence System

NIH   1R01MH130437-01A1 PI: Burkehouse, Katie   04/2023- 03/2028

  • Dr. Bhaumik serves as PI for the sub-contract of this grant

The Clinical History of Rectal and Urethral STIs among MSM: Characterizing microbiome host immune interactions for diagnostic and vaccine advances

NIH/NIAI R01AI177005     Mehta, SD – Contact MPI            8/18/2023 – 7/31/2028

  • Dr. Bhaumik serves as PI for the sub-contract of this grant

Single arm trial of menstrual cups among economically vulnerable women to reduce Bacterial vaginosis and STIs through reduced harmful sexual and menstrual practices

NIH/NIAID  R01 AI170564    Mehta, SD (PI)                        08/18/2022 – 07/31/2027

  • Dr. Bhaumik serves as PI for the sub-contract of this grant
  • Mentoring Ph.D. candidates in the application of biostatistical methods
     

Increased risk of STI and HIV among adolescent girls and young women due to COVID-19 and pandemic mitigation: Biological, behavioral, and psychosocial mediators

NIH/NICHD               R01HD106822              Mehta, SD (PI)                   09/16/2021 – 06/30/2025

  • Dr. Bhaumik serves as PI for the sub-contract of this grant
  • Mentoring Ph.D. candidates in the application of biostatistical methods

Center for Alcohol Research in Epigenetics

NIAAA/NIH      PI: S. Pandey

Alcoholism is a major public health concern worldwide. These novel studies and important collaborations among this exemplary research team will increase our understanding of the epigenetic mechanisms that may be involved in the pathophysiology of alcoholism. Ultimately, these studies may lead to the identification of epigenetic targets, which can be used to develop new pharmacotherapies to treat or prevent alcoholism.

Feasibility of a Combined Neuromodulation and Yoga Intervention for Veterans with Mild Traumatic Brain Injury and Chronic Pain

VA ORD, RR&D

For Veterans with mild TBI and chronic pain, the purpose of this SPiRE project is to develop a novel, combined neuromodulation and yoga neurorehabilitation intervention for Veterans with mTBI and chronic pain, and to examine the intervention’s feasibility and acceptability.

Neural target identification for functional disability associated with alcohol related characteristics among Veterans with co-occurring alcohol use disorder and traumatic brain injury.

VA ORD, RR&D

Identify neural targets associated with both alcohol-related characteristics and self-reported functional disability, and 2) assess preliminary efficacy and sustainability of a high frequency rTMS protocol applied to these customized targets relative to the commonly used left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex DLPFC among Veterans with co-occurring alcohol use disorder and mild traumatic brain injury.

Menstrual cups, maturation of the adolescent vaginal microbiome, and STI/HIV risk

The goal of this project is to study the mechanisms by which menstrual cup use lead to reduced BV and STIs, and the effect of menstrual cup use on evolution of the adolescent vaginal microbiome.
 

Examining the capacity of publicly-funded after school programs to promote children's mental health in urban, poor communities

The primary goal of this study is to apply Principal Component Analysis and IRT modeling to evaluate Organizational Social Context survey items.

Links to Learning

Links to Learning was funded by the National Institute for Mental Health (NIMH) to examine a school-based model for mental health consultation to urban, high poverty schools that focuses on the key empirical predictors of children’s learning and uses parent and teacher key informants to facilitate program utilization and sustainability.

Predicting and Detecting Drug Name Confusion Errors

The objective of this study is to develop three different types of prediction limits based on (i) mixed-effects logistic regression models, (ii) Poisson Distribution, and (iii) empirical Bayes estimates with a high assurance.