Skip to content
Dan Adler

Dan Adler

PhD Candidate
  • Home
  • Publications
  • Google Scholar
  • Blog
  • CV

Hello!

I'm Dan, a PhD Candidate in Information Science at Cornell University, based at Cornell Tech in NYC.

My research focuses on how data is transforming mental and behavioral healthcare. Most of my research to date has focused on how data can be used to measure individual-level mental health outcomes.

For example, I've conducted quantitative work, developing and validating machine learning models to measure symptoms of depression and schizophrenia. I have also conducted qualitative work, thinking about tensions surrounding the implementation of these data-driven tools, and how we can improve evidence generation in data-driven mental health measurement research. I recently wrote a piece in FastCompany on this latter topic!

Recently, I've become interested in leveraging these methods to design, implement, and enhance the effectiveness of incentive programs and policies aimed at promoting the utilization of evidence-based practices in mental healthcare. I'm also interested in policy solutions to improve reimbursement practices in mental healthcare, increasing access to high quality, affordable care.

If you're interested in chatting, definitely reach out! Email is best (dadler at infosci.cornell.edu). You can also find me on Twitter (@dadler27) or LinkedIn.

I'm advised by Tanzeem Choudhury, with support from Deborah Estrin and Fei Wang. My research is supported by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, a DLI Doctoral Fellowship, Optum Labs, and a Microsoft Azure Cloud Computing Grant through the Cornell Center for Data Science for Enterprise and Society.

Recent News (Updated 09/17/2023)

09/17/2023: I am looking to interview mental health clinicians for an IRB-approved study on how measurement-based care can be used in novel care quality monitoring programs. If you know any clinicians who would be interested in being interviewed, send me an email (dadler at infosci.cornell.edu)!

08/21/2023: Excited to teach Cornell Tech's Fall 2023 course on Precision Behavioral Health! This is my first time leading a graduate course. Email me if you have any tips :)

08/10/2023: Our qualitative research on mental health clinicians' perceptions of digital health tracking tools has been published! The publication can be accessed for free from JMIR Formative Research.

07/06/2023: Our paper researching mental health clinicians' perceptions and concerns with using sensed-behavioral data for clinical decision making was accepted by JMIR Formative Research. You can find the accepted version here.

06/26/2023: Our paper studying the use of data augmentation to improve machine learning models that predict mental health using sensed-behavioral data was accepted to the UbiComp Mental Health workshop. You can find the accepted paper here.

06/02/2023: Excited to co-lead the Ubiquitous Computing Mental Health workshop on October 8th in Cancún, Mexico! Our paper submission deadline was just extended until June 14th. More information linked.

04/23/2023: Attended the CHI workshop on "Bridging HCI and Implementation Science" in Hamburg, Germany!

03/28/2023: Preprint is out (linked) on our qualitative work to understand mental health clinicians' views on using behavioral data for symptom measurement.

03/09/2023: Presented my work on studying the reliability of tools that use data to measure individual-level mental health outcomes at the Cornell Tech Digital Life Initiative seminar! Recording linked.

02/02/2023: Will be attending the Behavioral Health Next Summit at Cornell Tech from March 6-7th! Looks like a great speaker lineup. Information on the summit and registration here.

11/16/2022: Our CSCW presentation on workplace stress measurement technologies is on YouTube. Watch here.

11/11/2022: Our qualitative research on workplace stress measurement technologies has been published in the Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction! The publication can be accessed for free on the ACM Digital Library, or PubMed.

10/06/2022: Presented a virtual poster at the Nature Medicine in a Virtual Age conference! You can find the poster and corresponding papers here.

09/01/2022: Excited to be a Cornell Digital Life Initiative (DLI) PhD Fellow for the 2022-23 academic year! More information about DLI here.

07/26/2022: Excited to be on this year's organizing committee for the ``Mental Health: Sensing & Intervention'' workshop at Ubicomp! See more information here about submitting to the workshop.

07/21/2022: Recent talk at The Alan Turing Institute on the reliability of mental health digital biomarkers up on YouTube (link).

07/18/2022: I will be attending Ubicomp to present our paper using wearable technology to measure stress-resilience (link). Hope to see you in Atlanta!

05/24/2022: Excited to be a program chair for KDD Health Day 2022! More information here.

05/21/2022: Our paper on using digital tools to measure resident physician stress has been accepted to be published at PACM HCI, the companion journal to the CSCW conference! The paper will be published in Fall 2022.

04/29/2022: I passed my A-exam and am now a PhD Candidate! My talk was titled "Psychometric Machine Learning", and I spoke about using ideas from psychometrics to assess the reliability and validity of machine learning identified mental health digital biomarkers.

04/27/2022: New paper on the generalizability of mental health digital biomarkers published in PLOS ONE (link).

03/03/2022: New perspective on using open data to make mental health digital biomarkers more equitable published in BJPsych Open (link).

Finding Home Part 2 – 2 years

February 24, 2021 Dan 1 Comment

Unsurprisingly, it’s taken me more than a year to write a new blog. It’s been hard to write during the…

Continue Reading →

Posted in: Blog Filed under: adulthood, mental health, relationships

Finding Home Part 1 – Why I don’t like Carlton Draught

November 30, 2019 Dan 1 Comment

This is the first of hopefully many posts to come where I detail some of my stories about the year…

Continue Reading →

Posted in: Blog Filed under: australia, beer, food, home, newyork, NYC, tasmania

Leaving New York

July 1, 2018 Dan 6 Comments

I wrote this quickly this past Thursday night after collecting some thoughts.  Thanks Agastya for the read through to make…

Continue Reading →

Posted in: Blog Filed under: adulthood, engineering, hong kong, life, math, NYC, travel

The divide between independence and vulnerability

September 4, 2017 Dan 2 Comments

I started this post back in June, but it didn’t feel complete as is, so I let it sit. It’s…

Continue Reading →

Posted in: Blog Filed under: college, engineering, jobs, life, metals, NYC, optimization, physics, science

After College: Connecting my Past and Future

August 5, 2016 Dan 8 Comments

My grandfather always loved oatmeal. He had been a Quaker Oats salesman for most of his life, and I can…

Continue Reading →

Posted in: Blog Filed under: Age, college, Growing Up, Machine Learning, Neural Networks, Neuroscience

Can Kanye FFT?

March 19, 2016 Dan Leave a comment

I’ve been told senior year of college should be about fooling around and shaking off the sweat from the past…

Continue Reading →

Posted in: Blog Filed under: FFT, Jazz, Kanye, NOLA, Sound

Senior Year: Trying to walk without tripping

December 27, 2015 Dan Leave a comment

I saw my friend send a Snapchat story yesterday in San Francisco with a nice 48 degrees fahrenheit as the…

Continue Reading →

Posted in: Blog Filed under: analytics, college, engineering, HMM, life, markov, math, models, probability, science, star wars

Money Talks: Special Interests Threaten our Desire to Innovate

October 26, 2015 Dan Leave a comment

This is an Op-Ed I wrote with another student. It was originally published in Charles St. News, a Johns Hopkins…

Continue Reading →

Posted in: Blog Filed under: Charles St News, climate change, incentives, innovation, politics, science

Summer 2K15 – Feeling Sleepy in the City that Never Sleeps

August 7, 2015 Dan Leave a comment

Life in your early to mid-20’s likes to play tricks on you in the fact that as soon as you…

Continue Reading →

Posted in: Blog, Uncategorized Filed under: Cookie Monster, engineering, Fun, Machine Learning, mattress, Miley Cyrus, New York City, NLP, NYC, sleep

My Actions and Reactions

May 18, 2015 Dan Leave a comment

I’ve had a really hard time for some reason coming up with this post.  It’s not even like I’ve been…

Continue Reading →

Posted in: Blog, Uncategorized

Post navigation

Page 1 of 2
1 2 Next →
Copyright © 2023 Dan Adler — Escapade WordPress theme by GoDaddy