Current Projects
Principle and co-investigators: Christy Wilson-Mendenhall, Richie Davidson, & Simon Goldberg
01
Emotions on the Go:
A Novel Video Ecological Momentary Assessment Study
Personal digital devices are transforming mental health research by enabling the remote measurement of psychological experiences in situ. Leveraging the ubiquity of smartphones and public familiarity with smartphone-recorded “selfies”, we developed a novel “video selfie” EMA protocol in which participants recorded the present-moment psychological state. We received nearly 70,000 video samples, which we use to examine natural language, vocal, and facial biomarkers of mental health and well-being.
02
The Usap Tayo Study
Funded by the Morgridge Center for Public Service and the Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Endowment, we formed a community-research partnership with FilExcellence, and in 2024 we launched the Usap Tayo Study, a mixed-methods investigation of the interpersonal, cultural, and political determinants of well-being for Filipino American communities.
Principle and co-investigators: Hadley Rahrig & Tony DelaRosa
Principle and co-investigators: Simon Goldberg & Richie Davidson
03
Landscapes of mental health: Using Remote Designs to Study Place-Based Inequality
The social-ecological conditions in which we live have important implications for mental and physical health. Using a a multimodal, fully-remote clinical depression trial (N = 1,157), we are currently exploring pathways through which environmental resources and adversities contribute to biological risk or resilience.
04
A metascientific approach to well-being research
With the interdisciplinary collaboration of WeMerge, a collective of early career well-being researchers across 15+ universities, we turn the lens of scientific inquiry inwards to understand how systems of scientific inquiry connect researchers to the communities they serve. In addition to developing a theoretical framework for this initiative (Rahrig et al., under review) we apply autoethnographic approaches to identify conditions that support well-being, connection, and self-determination in academic spaces.
