Ya-Wen (Yama) Chang

PhD Student in Quantitative Biomedical Science

Center for Technology and Behavioral Health, Dartmouth College

Yama Chang (she/her) is a PhD student in the Quantitative Biomedical Sciences (QBS) program at Dartmouth College, mentored by Dr. Nicholas Jacobson in the Artificial Intelligence and Mental Health: Innovation in Technology Guided Healthcare Lab at the Center for Technology and Behavioral Health.

Her research focuses on leveraging passive sensing, wearable devices, large language models (LLMs), and just-in-time adaptive interventions (JITAIs) to deliver scalable, personalized support for mental wellness. As part of the Evergreen AI initiative at Dartmouth, Yama is conducting research on the design and evaluation of a real-time, campus-wide intervention system that integrates multimodal data streams with LLM-based decision engines to deliver safe and adaptive support for undergraduate students. More broadly, she is interested in optimizing the timing of digital interventions and advancing clinical safety in AI-driven mental health systems.

Before beginning her PhD, Yama earned a master’s in Clinical Psychology from Columbia University and worked as a data scientist at the Lab for Scalable Mental Health.

Interests

Digital Mental Health Interventions
Just-in-Time Adaptive Interventions
AI-driven Mental Health
Psychedelics Research

Education

PhD in Quantitative Biomedical Science
Dartmouth College
MA in Clinical Psychology
Columbia University
BA in Economics
National Taiwan University

Skills

LLMs

Machine Learning

Deep Learning

Multimodal AI

Time-Series

Statistical Analysis

Research Projects

Time-Series Prediction of Change in Depressive Symptoms

In this project, we constructed an ML pipeline that predicted changes in the overall severity of depression symptoms in adolescents with high symptoms over a three-month period. We computed the residuals from a linear regression model, predicting the 3-month depression sum score based on the baseline depression sum score.

Digital Interventions for Rural Adolescents

Objective Rural teens are less likely to access care for depression than urban teens. Evidence-based digital single-session interventions (SSIs), offered via social media advertisements, may be well-suited to narrowing this gap in treatment access and increasing rural adolescents’ access to support.

Structural Stigma and Digital Intervention

In the United States, the experience of minority stress among LGBTQ+ youth varies across regions with high or low levels of stigma (e.g., laws, policies and cultural norms that limit the lives of individuals with stigmatized identities).

Childhood Trauma and Onset of Suicidal Attempt

Objectives To examine the relationship between childhood traumatic experiences and early and late-onset suicidal behavior among depressed older adults. Methods Our sample included 224 adults aged 50+ (M ± SD = 62.

Suicidal Ideation Trajectories - A Latent Profile Analysis

In young and middle-aged adults, suicidal ideation is an important predictor of prospective suicide attempts, but its predictive power in late life remains unclear. In this study, we used Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) in a cohort of depressed older adults to identify distinct ideation profiles and their clinical correlates and test their association with risk of suicidal behavior longitudinally.

Structural Stigma and Suicidal Thoughts and Behavior

Objective To determine how a statewide indicator of structural stigma is associated with suicidal thoughts and behaviors among sexual minority (SM) adolescents. Method We examined associations between structural stigma at the state level and suicidal thoughts and behaviors in a nationwide sample of sexual minority adolescents ages 14–18 in the United States (n=489) who completed a cross-sectional online survey in 2018.

Computational Psychiatry

Gender diverse individuals (i.e., identifying their gender as different from the sex assigned at birth) demonstrate higher rates of non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) compared to other sexual and gender minority (SGM) populations.

Health Inequalities and Suicide Risk - A Systematic Review

Role: Co-Investigator Collaborator: Adrienne Grzenda, M.D., Ph.D. (University of California, Los Angeles), Stefanie Kirchner, MPH (Medizinische Universität Wien), Ping Wang (Autonomous University of Madrid), & Diana E. Clarke, Ph.D (Johns Hopkins University)

Transgender Identity Development and Minority Stress

Role: First author Collaborator: Kasey B. Jackman (Columbia University), Jordan D. Dworkin (Columbia University), Anneliese A. Singh (Tulane University), Allen J. LeBlanc (San Francisco State University), & Walter O. Bockting (Columbia University)

Publications

Sotomayor, I., Ya-Wen (Yama) Chang, Szkody, E., Fox, K., Schleider, J. (2025). A Digital, Minority Stress-Focused Single-Session Intervention Benefits Multiply-Minoritized Sexual Minority Adolescents. In Press.

Paine, E., Abad, M., Barucco, R., Ya-Wen (Yama) Chang, Navalta, T., Vance, T., Ehrhardt, A., Bockting, W. (2025). "Too Much Trouble": Transgender and Nonbinary People's Experiences of Stigmatization and Stigma Avoidance in the Workplace. Work and Occupations.

DOI

Brown, V., Gujral, S., Ya-Wen (Yama) Chang, Galfalvy, H., Szanto, K., Dombrovski, A. Y. (2025). Brain volume reductions and relationship with depression and cognitive functioning in suicide in older adults: A cross-sectional and longitudinal study using Bayesian multilevel modeling. Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science.

Ya-Wen (Yama) Chang, Sotomayor, I., Szkody, E., Fox, K., Schleider, J. (2025). Effectiveness of an Online Single-Session Minority Stress Intervention: No Evidence for Variation by Structural Stigma, Internalized Stigma, or Social Support. SSM-Mental Health, 100409.

Ya-Wen (Yama) Chang, Schumacher, E., Martino, R., Maheux, A., Choukas-Bradley, S., Salk, R., Thoma, B. (2024). Structural Homophobia and Suicidal Ideation and Behavior Among Sexual and Gender Minority Adolescents. Stigma and Health.

DOI

Szkody, E., Ya-Wen (Yama) Chang, Schleider, J. L. (2023). Serving the Underserved? Uptake, Effectiveness, and Acceptability of Digital SSIs for Rural American Adolescents. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology.

DOI

Ya-Wen (Yama) Chang, Buerke, M., Galfalvy, H., Szanto, K. (2023). Childhood Trauma is Associated with Early-Onset but not Late-Onset Suicidal Behavior in Late-Life Depression. International Psychogeriatrics, 1-14.

PDF DOI

Galfalvy, H., Szücs, A., Ya-Wen (Yama) Chang, Buerke, M., Szanto, K. (2023). Long-Term Suicidal Ideation Profiles in Late-Life Depression and Their Association with Suicide Attempt or Death by Suicide. The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 84(2), 22m14469.

PDF

Open Access Resources

Data Science in R

UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital | Fall 2021

I organized and developed a R workshop with four sessions including introduction to R, data wrangling, data visualization, and data analysis. Each session includes a 10-minute presentation to cover the learning goal and concept of each topic, following by a learning-by-doing module. This workshop aimed to guide everyone with no prior experience in R to feel comfortable with coding and eventually apply R coding skills in research projects. Please find the materials including slides and R scripts on my GitHub. Please feel free to reach out for recordings.