Meet Cross-Hub Research Fellow Justin

Dr Justin Yang is a psychiatric epidemiologist and health data scientist specialising in data-driven approaches to mental health research. 

Justin is one of the first recipients of the MHP Early Career Researcher Fellowship Awards, which aim to help develop future leaders in SMI research. His project will look at “socioemotional drivers”, the feelings, relationships, values, and social needs which motivate how people think, make decisions, and behave. It will bring together Complex Emotions, DATAMIND, and Social Health. ​He tells us more about his work, hopes for the project and offers thoughts on developing as a researcher.

Socioemotional Context 

In my research, I want to understand how socioemotional drivers shape the course of mental illness. This includes emotions, relationships, and lived environment. I believe this understanding might inform more supportive and responsive care.

Partnership, not Participation

Severe mental illness can profoundly shape how people think, feel, and relate to others. Experiences such as loneliness, emotional distress, and the strain of navigating difficult social environments can influence how people become unwell, how they experience care, and how they recover over time.

Engaging with people with lived experience is the foundation of my project. From shaping research questions to interpreting findings and sharing results, lived experience collaborators are integral to the work. I am deeply motivated to operate at the intersection of lived experience, data science, and mental health research, with the aim of improving how people experience living with mental illness and engaging with services.

Learning through Collaboration

Never be the brightest person in the room; then you can’t learn anything.

– James Watson

Growing as a researcher

One of the most effective ways to learn, stay current, and improve the quality of your work is to join research communities.  Communities exist for almost every methodology, topic, and approach, and engaging with these networks is. These spaces are where ideas are tested, assumptions are challenged, and methods evolve.

For example, the UK Healthcare Text Analytics Network hosts an annual conference that brings together international experts while also creating space for early career researchers to share emerging ideas. Opportunities like this are invaluable, not only for technical learning, but for developing the habit of intellectual exchange.

More broadly, I think methodological humility is essential when working with complex data about human experience. By this I mean being open about uncertainty, learning from adjacent disciplines, and taking the time to understand perspectives beyond your own can make your research both more rigorous and more meaningful.