Jonah Meyerhoff, PhD

Public executions will continue until the citizenry is silent.

Publication spotlight! 🌟

Congrats to CBITs alumni Tanvi Lakhtakia & Shannon Smith! Their new paper with @jonahjmeyerhoff.bsky.social and Dr. David Mohr explores how everyday digital signals relate to depression, opening the door for smarter mental health tools.

psycnet.apa.org/buy/2026-788...

Hello friends! I am partnering with the Zur Institute to offer a 3-hour training on January 16 (CE credits available) titled: "Understanding Suicide to Prevent Suicide: A Deeper Dive". Please consider joining or spreading the word. Would love to see you there!

www.zurinstitute.com/webinars/und...

The legal, media, and academic institutions capitulating to an authoritarian ordering payments for favorable treatment are damning themselves to irrelevance. They are destroying their institutions. They will be — and should be — shunned for failing in their most basic purposes for existing.

Announcing this not just on a Friday, but on the most holiday weekend of all Fridays, def shows how proud Northwestern’s admins must feel for caving in to bad faith attacks like this.

And, in the process, leaving all universities that still have a spine in more vulnerable positions than before.

Appeasement has never worked. Never.

LLMs for Medical Practice: Look Out

Some well-founded warnings about the use of LLMs in medicine:

Hello mental health/suicide researchers! Do any of you use the SBQ-R? I have a question about it. I have used the measure before and remain perplexed by the fourth question.

Happy to talk about the postdoc as an alum and mentor.

Well, this is chilling AF.

The Department of Education is suing Penn (in their quest for "combat antisemitism") requesting detailed information about Jewish faculty and staff.

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

1/2

Thanks, I hate it.

NIH program officer @jenna-m-norton.bsky.social has been placed on admin leave, sources say.

Norton has been outspoken about the Trump administration's dismantling of science, and she signed the Bethesda Declaration.

Bhattacharya has said that "science is dead without free speech".

Hey folks! The Violence Prevention Center at UNC Charlotte is looking for a postdoc in suicide prevention training! Great opportunity to work with a talented group on important research related to mental health https://jobs.charlotte.edu/postings/64918

Free in 15 minutes? Come join me to talk about suicide prevention!

🚨🚨 Reminder to check out @jonahjmeyerhoff.bsky.social's free virtual seminar on Friday at 1pm EDT / 12pm CDT!

Come see what we’re up to!

Happening Now: Thousands out for a “No Kings” protest in Chicago

Busses too crowded to hold everyone heading to #nokings. Way to go Chicago!

This paper led by Sarah Popowski and @rachelkornfield.bsky.social overviews a needs assessment to tailor an automated text messaging intervention to the needs of Black adults living in the US. Participants shared that intersection of racism & mental health trajectories must inform intvntn content.

Attorney for woman shot by Border Patrol claims officer said 'Do something b-----' before shooting Body-camera video appears to contradict the government's claim that Marimar Martinez, 30, drove toward officers before one of them opened fire at her late Saturday morning in Brighton Park, her attorney claimed. A judge ordered Martinez and a co-defendant released pending trial.

Body-camera video appears to contradict the government’s claim that Marimar Martinez, 30, drove toward officers before one of them opened fire at her late Saturday morning in Brighton Park, her attorney claimed.
trib.al/9Sxu9IN

Got an idea? Partner with us!

This evening, President Trump is ordering 400 members of the Texas National Guard for deployments to Illinois, Oregon, and other locations within the United States. No officials from the federal government called me directly to discuss or coordinate.

Just called. It’s easy to do.

Kristi Noem: How DARE you accuse our glorious ICE agents of racial profiling.

Head of the Chicago raids: We are stopping people based on “how they look, how do they look compared to, say,” a tall, middle aged white guy.

I’m starting a suicide prevention research lab at UMass Amherst! I’ll be reviewing applications for our clinical psychology PhD program. Come to our virtual open house to learn more about the program and speak with faculty accepting students.
www.umass.edu/psychologica...

Text messaging is a uniquely accessible way to deliver digital health interventions, offering broad reach and ease of use compared to most apps. When combined with advanced machine learning techniques, text messaging can also become adaptive and highly personalized. In this talk, Dr. Kornfield will describe how her team is leveraging machine learning and AI within Small Steps SMS, an automated text messaging program that supports self-management of depression and anxiety. She will highlight how the program uses reinforcement learning—a form of machine learning that optimizes decisions over time—allowing daily messages to adapt based on user engagement, mood, and availability. Dr. Kornfield will also discuss ongoing work exploring how generative AI can be integrated into a rule-based messaging system to expand and tailor content while maintaining safety and fidelity. Finally, she will share key lessons from implementing these tools in real-world settings, including how a partnership with Mental Health America has guided adaptations to Small Steps SMS. This includes co-developing content for underserved populations (e.g., adolescents, racial/ethnic minorities) and designing workflows that align with the operational needs of community-based organizations.

📅 Join us on Tuesday, September 30 for a presentation by Rachel Kornfield from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine as she explores how machine learning can be used to deliver text message-based mental health support.
shorturl.at/Azrj9
#BehavioralHealth #AI #CDIAS #PSMG

Rachel getting two shout outs is reflective of her outsized contribution — and also my lack of proofreading before posting.

It’s fun work. I’m lucky to be able to do it w/such amazing ppl: Sarah Popowski, Emily Tack, Tanvi Lakhtakia, Crystal Quan, Jack Svoboda, Theresa Nguyen, Kevin Rushton, Charlie Krause, Rachel Kornfield, @davidcmohr.bsky.social, Madhu Reddy, Rachel Kornfield, @kimvo.bsky.social & @cjkarr.bsky.social

If the general principle here is that the federal government subsidizes higher ed activity and these innovations, I very much look forward to the period of forced nationalization of tech companies.