Plenary Sessions
Chatbots: Friend or Foe
| John Torous, MD MBI is director of the digital psychiatry division, in the Department of Psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), a Harvard Medical School affiliated teaching hospital, where he also serves as a staff psychiatrist and associate professor. He has a background in electrical engineering and computer sciences and received an undergraduate degree in the field from UC Berkeley before attending medical school at UC San Diego. He completed his psychiatry residency, fellowship in clinical informatics, and master’s degree in biomedical informatics at Harvard. Dr. Torous is active in investigating the potential of mobile mental health technologies for psychiatry and his team supports mindapps.org as the largest database of mental health apps, the mindLAMP technology platform for scalable digital phenotyping and intervention, and the Digital Navigator program to promote digital equity and access. Dr. Torous has published over 300 peer reviewed articles and 5 book chapters on the topic. He directs the Digital Psychiatry Clinic at BIDMC which seeks to improve access to and quality of mental health care through augmenting treatment with digital innovations. Dr. Torous serves as editor-in-chief for the journal JMIR Mental Health, web editor for JAMA Psychiatry, and a member of various American Psychiatric Association committees. | John Torous, MD, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School |  |
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Director, HKJC Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention Chair Professor, Department of Social Work and Social Administration Associate Dean (Knowledge Exchange and Development), Faculty of Social Sciences Professor Yip is the Chair Professor (Population Health) at the Department of Social Work and Social Administration, Associate Dean (Knowledge Exchange and Development) at the Faculty of Social Sciences, and the Director of the University’s HKJC Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention. He is interested in identifying and developing good practices for promoting wellbeing in the community. He has received various awards and recognitions, including ChiangJiang Scholar by Ministry of Education(2021-2024); Rehabilitation International Centennial Award (2023); the Hong Kong Spirit Award by the South China Morning Post and Sino Group in 2021, the Humanities and Social Sciences Prestigious Fellowship in 2020, Australia-China Alumni Award (Research) in 2019, a Medal of Honor from the Hong Kong SAR Government in 2017, the Stengel Research award in 2012, an outstanding supervisor and researcher of the University of Hong Kong in 2009, 2011 and 2017 respectively. He has published extensively relating to population health and suicide prevention. He is ranked no 1 in social sciences and humanities in China by the research.com. |
Professor Paul S. F. YIP |  |
Estimating the Impact of Public Health Initiatives
| Andrew Page (PhD, University of Sydney) is Professor of Epidemiology in the Translational Health Research Institute (Western Sydney University) and Senior Research Associate at the Center for Mind and Culture (Boston). Andrew has research experience in epidemiology, psychology and public health, with particular interests in the study of suicide and mental health, the social determinants of health, injury prevention, breast cancer screening, and maternal and child health. Andrew also has interests in the application of systems science and computational simulation approaches to epidemiological evidence in order to inform policy and health service decision support tools. | Andrew Page, PhD, University of Sydney |  |
The Ins and Outs of Cultural Relevance
| Diana E. Clarke, PhD, MSc, MA, LGPC is the Senior/Managing Director of Research and Senior Epidemiologist/Research Statistician at the American Psychiatric Association. In this role, she co-leads efforts to oversee the maintenance of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM). At the APA, she conducts research on the assessment and prevention of mental and substance use disorders including suicide and suicidal behaviors. She researches gaps in training for behavioral health providers and the potential impact on patient outcomes. Her research efforts are multifaceted with the overarching goal to help: 1) inform our understanding of the underlying causes of mental and substance use disorders across the lifespan and associated disparities in access to care; 2) identify modifiable risk and protective factors that can positively impact the lives of individuals across different age, gender, and ethnoracial groups; 3) examine the impact of cultural factors on risk of suicide and suicidal behaviors and variations in pathways to care; and 4) identify gaps in training across mental health providers and suicide prevention researchers and impact on research translation and quality of care. Dr. Clarke utilizes interesting combinations of quantitative and qualitative methods in her research endeavors. She is also an Adjunct faculty in the Department of Mental Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and President-elect of the International Academy of Suicide Research. She has received many honorific awards as well as federal and foundation grants for her work. She has numerous peer-reviewed publications as well as book chapters. | Diana Clarke, PhD, MSc, MA, LGPC, American Psychiatric Association |  |
| Kiara Álvarez, PhD is a Bloomberg Assistant Professor of American Health in the Department of Health, Behavior, and Society at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she directs the HERENCIA Lab. She is a licensed psychologist, holds a joint appointment at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and is affiliated faculty with the Johns Hopkins Center for Suicide Prevention and Centro SOL. Her research focuses on youth mental health equity, suicide prevention, and the well-being of Latine and immigrant youth, including family-centered approaches to integrating mental health into primary care and community settings. Her research has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, the William T. Grant Foundation, and the American Psychological Foundation. Dr. Álvarez completed her psychology internship training at Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School and received her doctorate from the APA-accredited School Psychology program at the University of Texas at Austin. She holds an Ed.M. in Human Development and Psychology from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a B.A. in Literature from Harvard University. She has served on the Board of Directors for the Society for Prevention Research and is on the steering committee for the Youth Suicide Research Consortium. | Kiara Alvarez, Ph.D., Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health |  |
Inflammation and Brain Function in Suicide
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Dr. Lena C. Brundin, M.D., Ph.D. is a physician-scientist who is an expert in the role of inflammation and inflammatory metabolites in depression and suicidality. She serves as a Professor in the Department of Neurodegenerative Science at Van Andel Institute in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Dr. Brundin received her M.D. and Ph.D. in neurobiology from Lund University in Sweden, where she also completed clinical training in psychiatry. Her research focuses on immune system dysregulation as a key driver of neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders—including major depressive disorder, suicide risk, Parkinson’s disease, and perinatal depression. Dr. Brundin is best known for her discoveries linking inflammation and altered tryptophan-kynurenine metabolism to psychiatric illness. Her highly cited studies were among the first to demonstrate that elevated levels of inflammatory cytokines and neurotoxic kynurenine metabolites in cerebrospinal fluid are associated with suicidal ideation and behavior. Her team has also made pivotal contributions to understanding mood disorders during pregnancy. She identified dysregulation of kynurenine pathway enzymes in the placenta as a potential contributor to severe postpartum depression, with implications for predictive biomarkers and early intervention in maternal mental health. Dr. Brundin leads multiple NIH- and foundation-funded clinical trials and collaborates with the Michael J. Fox Foundation and international partners. Her translational research integrates psychiatry, neurology, women’s health and immunology, and is redefining how we detect, understand, and treat brain disorders driven by inflammation.
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Lena Brundin, PhD, Van Andel Research Institute |  |
Morselli Award Plenary
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David Gunnell FFPH DSc FMedSci is a Public Health Physician and Emeritus Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Bristol (UK). He has worked in the field of suicide prevention for over 30 years, publishing over 400 peer reviewed papers. His research focuses on strengthening the research evidence to inform population-based suicide prevention. The most notable of his contributions are in the fields of means restriction (pesticides/high-risk locations/gases); medicine safety (antidepressant prescribing, varenicline and analgesics); socioeconomic influences on suicide rates (in particular in relation to the 2008 Global Recession); and most recently in relation to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on suicide. In term of methodology, he was the first to use Join-Point regression approaches – a methodology previously largely restricted to the field of cancer research – to evaluate time trends in suicide. He has led two pilot RCTs and been a co-investigator on several of the world’s largest RCTs of suicide/ self-harm prevention. He has contributed several WHO reports – most recently their work on pesticide regulation. He was a member of England’s National Suicide Prevention Strategy Advisory Group for England for 20 years and contributed to numerous medicine safety reviews. Areas of recent research include: the mental health and risk of suicide of young people (including students); the impact of COVID-19 on population mental health and suicide; the global burden of pesticide suicide. In early 2020, in collaboration with IASP and IASR, he brought together a group of suicide prevention researchers from around the world to form the International COVID-19 Suicide Prevention Research Collaboration (ICSPRC) |
David Gunnell, FFPH DSc FMedSci, University of Bristol (UK) |  |