Pioneering Research

Innovative Research that Transforms Lives

NYU Silver faculty and students conduct an extraordinary range of innovative, high-impact research, with a focus on proactive services and preventive interventions that transform lives. Current faculty projects funded by the National Institutes of Health include studies that are seeking to optimize an intervention for vulnerable populations living with HIV; investigating the role that ethnic identity plays in marginalized young adults’ mental health service use, identifying modifiable determinants of child neglect, and testing a novel intervention to keep Black adolescents engaged in depression treatment. These are just a few of the ways NYU Silver is harnessing science for public impact.

Mother guiding a young child on a bike with training wheels while the father follows behind

Harnessing Virtual Reality & AI to Prepare MSW Students for Clinical Practice

With a grant from our Constance and Martin Silver Center on Data Science and Social Equity, Drs. Nicholas Lanzieri and Anne Dempsey are partnering with colleagues from NYU Tandon School of Engineering and NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development to develop and test an AI-powered, virtual reality simulation template that is designed specifically to enable students to gain and apply social work skills.

Still image from a current virtual reality simulation on which the VR template will improved. It shows a busy Grand Street Subway station with people coming and going from a train to the left of the platform and stairs to the right. A pop up map of Lower Manhattan with a pin on the Grand Street subway stop is on the left and VR directional icons are overlaid on the bottom. Text below reads "A VR template in development will improve upon current simulation-based learning experiences, such as the one shown above."

Robust Support for Impactful Scientific Research

NYU Silver’s Office for Research facilitates the conduct of research, fosters relevant skill development, and helps disseminate findings. 

Using an Engineering-Inspired Framework to Optimize an HIV Intervention

Professor and Associate Dean of Research Marya Gwadz and her Heart to Heart 2 study team (pictured here) used the multiphase optimization strategy (MOST) framework, developed by Co-Principal Investigator Dr. Linda M. Collins, to design an optimized intervention to foster engagement along the HIV care continuum for Black and Latinx people living with HIV who are neither taking antiretroviral therapy nor well engaged in HIV primary care. Their National Institute of Drug Abuse funded study was the first application of the MOST framework in the field of HIV treatment and prevention. 

Dr. Gwadz standing amongst the Heart to Heart team

Addressing Mental Health Inequities Among Minoritized Young Adults

Racial and ethnic minority young adults in the U.S. with serious mental illness (SMI) face increased risk of ending their treatment prematurely. With a four-year, nearly $740,000 grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, Assistant Professor Kiara Moore is partnering with minoritized young adults with SMI to adapt and test a mental health engagement intervention to address this disparity.

Assistant Professor Kiara Moore presenting in front of a projected screen

Fighting Child Malnutrition, One Egg at a Time

School-age children in China’s remote and poor areas often experience malnutrition and stunted growth. Clinical Associate Professor Minchao Jin studied the effectiveness of a nonprofit initiative that gave children in underdeveloped Chinese villages a hardboiled egg each school day. Findings, which included significant increases in the children’s height, weight and body mass, helped the ongoing One Egg Program gain wider support. 

a cardboard egg carton holding 30 brown eggs in five rows

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