Team members
Runsen Chen, Ph.D.
Principle Investigator
I am an Assistant Professor and Principal Investigator of Vanke School of Public Health, Tsinghua University. I received my doctoral degree at Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford in 2020. My research interests are psychiatric epidemiology, psychopathology and psychological interventions, with focuses on mood disorders, self-harm and suicide in children and adolescents.
Diyang Qu, Ph.D.
Co-Principal Investigator
Post-Doctoral Fellow
Shuimu Tsinghua Scholar
The Postdoctoral International Exchange Progra
My research interests involve exploring the multifaceted protective and promoting factors across various systems within at-risk populations. Specifically, I focus on individuals who engage in nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) or experience mental health challenges. Additionally, I am dedicated to the development of impactful interventions that facilitate positive adaptation among these individuals. These interventions encompass a range of modalities, including face-to-face interactions, digital platforms, and just-in-time interventions.
Post-doc
In alphabetical order
Zhijun Wu, Ph.D.
Post-doc Fellow
I am a researcher with a keen interest in adolescent mental health, particularly in understanding the mechanisms underlying non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) and suicide. My work also focuses on identifying the protective and risk factors associated with NSSI. I am particularly drawn to large-scale longitudinal studies as they offer valuable insights into the long-term trajectories of mental health outcomes. My research aims to contribute to the development of effective interventions and policies to support adolescents' mental well-being.
Weijia Li,Ph.D.
Post-doc Fellow
My research focuses on the relationship between family education and the development of social-emotional competence in children and adolescents. It explores how family education practices contribute to mental health, including cognitive function, psychological well-being, emotional regulation, and behavioral adaptability. Additionally, my work investigates the mechanisms by which family education influences mental health outcomes, including the roles of parent-child interactions, parenting styles, and family environment. Through multidimensional data analysis and longitudinal research methods, I aim to uncover the key factors in family education that modulate the occurrence and progression of mental health issues in children and adolescents. Focusing on the aforementioned research questions, I have published research articls as the first author in prestigious journals such as Journal of Personality Assessment and Journal of Cognition and Development.
Zihang Su, Ph.D.
Post-Doctoral Fellow
My research interest is using electrophysiological signals for the screening of depression and suicide risks. Depression and suicidal tendencies are often associated with dysfunctions in the autonomic nervous system and abnormalities in brain network activity. Electrophysiological signals, including heart rate variability (HRV), electroencephalogram (EEG) features, and galvanic skin response (GSR), provide insights into the regulatory states of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems as well as emotion-related neural activities, providing objective biomarkers for the early detection of depression and suicide. In my work, I collect multimodal electrophysiological data—such as EEG, electrocardiogram (ECG), electromyogram (EMG), and GSR—and apply frequency-domain, time-domain, and nonlinear analytical methods to investigate the correlation between signal variations and depression/suicide risks. Furthermore, deep learning and explainable artificial intelligence techniques can be employed to extract key features and identify recurring patterns in the data, presenting a potential research direction for constructing effective detection models. The overarching goal of this research is to develop a real-time, non-invasive, and highly sensitive screening tool that supports the early detection and personalized intervention of depression and suicide. During my doctoral studies, my primary research focused on pattern recognition for intelligent agents, including a project aimed at developing goal recognition algorithms to analyze EMG signals and identify human arm motion intentions. I published several papers as the first/corresponding author in leading journals such as Artificial Intelligence and Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence.
Xiaoyu Lv, Ph.D.
Post-Doctoral Fellow
My research focuses on integrating multimodal neuroimaging data with machine learning techniques to develop suicide behavior prediction models and explore the neural mechanisms underlying suicidal intent and behavior from a brain function perspective. Additionally, I aim to create personalized suicide behavior prediction models based on existing clinical suicide data, with the goal of embedding suicide prevention into every household and effectively reducing the incidence of suicidal behavior. Regarding personalized treatment strategies, I published a study as the first author in Communications Biology, where I proposed a variational relevance evaluation algorithm framework. This framework successfully applied machine learning in non-big-data environments by combining variational methods based on small sample datasets, providing an important basis for future individualized suicide behavior prediction model development.
Chang Liu, Ph.D.
Post-Doctoral Fellow
My research is centered on the dose-response relationship between physical activity and mental health, as well as between physical activity and suicidal ideation and behavior. The aim is to tailor the modality and dosage of physical activity to the specific characteristics of different groups, such as age, gender, and body mass index, in order to precisely promote mental health and effectively reduce the incidence of suicidal thoughts and actions. Additionally, the research delves into the neurobiological, psychosocial and behavioral mechanisms underlying the connection between physical activity and mental health, suicidal ideation, and behavior, with the goal of providing a solid scientific foundation for further clinical applications. I published an article as the first author in the "JAMA Pediatrics". The article used a multi-level meta-analysis method to explore the relationship between physical activity interventions and the mental health of children and adolescents with neurodevelopmental disorders, including cognitive function, psychological well-being, internalizing and externalizing problems, and identified potential moderators related to methodology, participant characteristics, types and doses of physical activity, as well as the interactions among these moderators. Subsequently, I published another article as the first author in the "American Journal of Preventive Medicine," further exploring the potential neurobiological, psychosocial, and behavioral mechanisms underlying the relationship between physical activity interventions and the mental health of children and adolescents with neurodevelopmental disorders.
Graduate Students
Undergraduate Student
Research Assistant
Intern
Weiyan Ye; Junkang Lin; Zining Ding; Yinghao Qin; Songhao Li; Songsong Huang; Lu Liu; Jian Feng
Alumini
Dongyu Liu
Ph.D. inPublic Health, University of Hong Kong
Chengxi Cai
Professional doctorate
in clinical psychology,
University of East London
Jinman Jiang
Ph.D. in psychology,
University College
London
Yanwen Zhang
Lecturer in Department
of Psychology, Guangzhou
Baiyun College
Xueer Duan
Ph.D. in Psychology,
South China Normal University
Peishan Jiang
Graduate student,
Peking University
Yinzhe Wang
Practice of Clinical
Psychologist in New York
Zimo Huang
Graduate student in neuroscience,
University College London
Xue Yang
Ph.D. in Psychology
Capital Normal
University
Daixi Ren
Ph.D. in Psychology,
Central South University PHD student
Research Assistant
Ziqian Wei
Yuhao He
Research Assistant
Jiaao Yu
Research assistant
Yating Deng
Lab manager
ZiQi Liu
Research assistant
Ning Yue
Research assistant
Xuan Zhang
Research assistant
Yifan Qin
Research assistant
Kunxu Liu
Research assistant
Xiaoyu Xu
MPH studnet
Dongyang Chen
Research assistant
Linshanjie Da
Research assistant
Anni Zhu
Research assistant
Liying Che
Research assistant
Can Zhu
MPH studnet
Chen Yin
MPH student
Jiajia Ren
MPH Student
Yajing Sun
Post-doc
Juan Wang
Post-doc
Meng Han
Post-doc
Mei Yu
Post-doc
Huagen Wang
Post-doc