Zachary Cohen

For instance: @claireecusack.bsky.social just submitted a paper today in which we show that discrete emotion states predict discrete avoidance behavior in SAD with *very* high accuracy. We know this, right? But now we can locate the phenomenon in *specific moments of time* à la JITAI concepts.

Are you a junior faculty member interested in spending 2-4 weeks at Princeton Psych? Consider applying for our Microsabbatical program! It’s a fully funded visit for professional development and creating long-term collaborations.
psych.princeton.edu/diversity/mi...

a close up of a sad cat with the words pleeeaasse written below it ALT: a close up of a sad cat with the words pleeeaasse written below it

Thread of these papers?

New preprint! We investigate the risk of algorithmic bias (across race/ethnicity, gender, and their intersection) in machine learning models predicting suicide attempts across 3 clinical settings in over 1.2 million patients.

osf.io/preprints/ps...

Banner image with screenshot of scientific article from nature Medicine, as well as two panels from the study method and results

⚠️ Despite all the hype, chatbots still make terrible doctors. Out today is the largest user study of language models for medical self-diagnosis. We found that chatbots provide inaccurate and inconsistent answers, and that people are better off using online searches or their own judgment.

Have you been interested in any of the set theory stuff I've been doing recently? Wondered at all how you can get in on the fun? Here's an R package @nicolasleenaerts.bsky.social and I built called 'setweaver.' This vignette should get you up and running. Yay :)
cran.r-project.org/web/packages...

Thrilled to announce the Oxford Psychological Networks Summer School (OxPNS)!

This is the first-ever psychological network analysis workshop in the UK, to be held in magical Oxford from June 22-26, 2026.

To apply and for more information, please visit: oxfordpns.com

A brief thread 🧵

Alison Luchs, who has worked at the National Gallery of Art for 47 years, agreed to learn Gen Z slang and make videos because she wanted to raise interest in the museum’s art.

She never expected to slay. https://wapo.st/45BXc3S

Looking for a postdoc in #computationalpsychiatry? Apply here to join an interdisciplinary team and work with a large longitudinal transdiagnostic dataset

postdocs.yale.edu/posts/2026-0...

@RobbRutledge @xiaosigu @DrChrisPitt @PearlsonGodfrey @ACNPorg @YaleMed

the Summer Internship

We're doing summerpsych.com again this year!

PhD curious undergrads, come hang out at the CSI lab, help us push forward a project and develop your social science chops Applications are due March 1st:

Seven Symptoms Over Nearly 4,000 Days: Item-Level Variability in the Psychometric Properties of Daily Alcohol Use Disorder Symptoms in Young Adult Drinkers - Kevin M. King, Dahyeon Kang, Megan E. Schu... People experience symptoms of alcohol use disorders (AUD) in their daily lives, including more impairment-based symptoms (e.g., hazardous use, interpersonal pro...

I kept reading EMA studies claiming to test etiological theories of AUD, but I realized they never actually measured how people experience AUD in their daily lives. So we set out to see what we could learn with existing data.

1/19

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

If our theories have to do with people's daily experience then we really need to know how well we're measuring daily experience.

So we need more of what Kevin's team is doing here! Just because your item has the right words in it doesn't mean you know what it measures, or how well.

We're hiring! The Computational Clinical Science Lab @ Yale is seeking a full-time lab manager/research coordinator to start in early summer 2026.

For more information about the position and to apply: forms.gle/LtQwVgPUfaGk...

Please share widely & consider applying!

Interested in research on depression in youth? New opening for a full-time research assistant in our lab (webbslab.com) to work on a range of projects focused on the causes & treatment of depression in teens. Come join our growing lab. Please RT and share! Apply⬇️
webbslab.com/job-postings

Here is NIMH

There were 51% as many new R01s in FY25 as in FY24.

Note the large increase in RF1 multi-year awards.

10/n

From innovation to implementation: Artificial intelligence in cognitive behaviour therapy training and supervision Artificial intelligence (AI) can transform mental health care globally by improving the efficiency, consistency, effectiveness and accessibility of tr…

"From Innovation to Implementation: Artificial Intelligence in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy Training and Supervision" New paper led by Roz Shafran, with contributions from a ton of leading experts on AI in mental health (and also, for reasons unclear, me) www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

WARN-D machine learning competition is live » Eiko Fried If you share one single thing of our team in 2026—on social media or per email with your colleagues—please let it be this machine learning competition. It was half a decade of work to get here, especi...

After 5 years of data collection, our WARN-D machine learning competition to forecast depression onset is now LIVE! We hope many of you will participate—we have incredibly rich data.

If you share a single thing of my lab this year, please make it this competition.

eiko-fried.com/warn-d-machi...

Bravo - very well deserved recognition of your impactful work

Point of no returns: researchers are crossing a threshold in the fight for funding With so little money to go round, the costs of competing for grants can exceed what the grants are worth. When that happens, nobody wins.

Happy new year? www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Flagging the U of A's Provost's Postdoctoral Fellows Program (PPFP) for any ECRs who might be interested...
provost.arizona.edu/provosts-pos...

We could also grill, if you’re into that sort of thing…

If you ever come visit us in Tucson I’ll take you to a place that has very solid spaghetti by the bucket (we have gotten takeout buckets multiple times)

Interpretation Issues With the Patient Health Questionnaire Instructions This survey study assesses whether responses to the Patient Health Questionnaire reflect symptom frequency and severity.

Cool study in JAMA Psychiatry confirms what many have suspected for a while: PHQ (depression questionnaire) instructions are widely misinterpreted by patients. It is unfortunate that a questionnaire as shitty as PHQ-9 has become so ingrained & ubiquitous

jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

@dawsonhaddox.bsky.social has another piece in prep with more to say on that :/

Transdisciplinary work is fantastic, but requires dedicated efforts from all sides to understand each other’ Eiko Fried has been appointed professor of Mental Health & Data Science. This combined chair neatly fits the view that understanding complex mental health issues require the integration of statistical...

Our university press team asked me a few questions in regards to the new chair on Mental Health & Data Science. I sketch a bit of a vision on the importance of transdisciplinary work, and some obstacles to overcome.

www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/news/2025...

Awesome to finally see this published - extremely important paper! Bravo LLL :)

Effects of patient response pattern distributions on comparisons of psychosocial treatments for major depressive disorder The pharmaceutical industry has paid more attention to potential variability in depressed patients' ability to benefit from antidepressants vs. placeb…

1/ Our paper years in the making is finally out!

TL;DR even very strong effects (d=1.00) can be attenuated by sampling from populations where there is variability in their likelihood of natural improvement (e.g., mild depression cases remitting on their own)

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Credit to @margaritap.bsky.social, Josip Razum, @gudruneisele.bsky.social, @shirleybwang.bsky.social and @eikofried.bsky.social. And thanks to #MINTB for the awesome meeting at which the hackathon that resulted in this paper took place :) @bringmannlaura.bsky.social @domimaciejewski.bsky.social etc.

Nice writeup of our new study in @jamapsychiatry.com by Kyle Mittan, a colleague here at @uarizona.bsky.social
news.arizona.edu/news/confuse...