ASR Public Lecture Series: AI and Social Media for Suicide Prevention

In our first lecture, Dr. Munmun De Choudhury will explore Artificial Intelligence and Social Media for Suicide Prevention: An Ecological, Multi-Scale Approach. This talk will highlight how digital data can be harnessed to better understand, detect, and respond to mental health challenges, while also addressing the ethical complexities of these tools.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this lecture, participants will be able to:

• Understand how online activity can provide early warning signs of mental health struggles.
• Identify how patterns in social media and digital behavior may reflect stress, depression, or suicide risk.
• Recognize both the benefits and risks of using AI and digital tools in mental health.
• Explore how these technologies can support care and prevention, while also considering challenges such as privacy, fairness, and trust.
• Discover how research is being translated into real-world mental health support for clinicians, families, and communities.

About the Lecturer

Munmun De Choudhury is J. Z. Liang Professor at the School of Interactive Computing and Co-Lead of Patient-Centered Care Delivery at the Pediatric Technology Center in Georgia Institute of Technology. Dr. De Choudhury is known for her contributions to the fields of computational social science, human-computer interaction, and digital mental health. Through fostering interdisciplinary collaborations across academia, industry, and public health sectors, Dr. De Choudhury and her collaborators have contributed significantly to advancing the development of computational techniques for early detection and intervention in mental health, as well as in unpacking how social media use benefits or harms mental well-being.