GCAIMH News May 2025
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Dear Downstate GCAIMH Members,
We’re excited to share recent developments from the Global Center for AI in Mental Health (GCAIMH). We look forward to your collaboration to progress toward innovative, equitable AI-driven mental health solutions.
🌐 New Website Launch
Our new GCAIMH Website is live! Explore our goals, research initiatives, education and outreach, affiliated members and strategic partnerships.
📰 Featured in President’s Bulletin
We’re honored to have been featured in the recent SUNY Downstate President’s Bulletin, which highlighted GCAIMH's official launch, research priorities, and collaborations.
✅ SUNY STRIVE Seed Funding Goals Completed
We are glad to announce that we have successfully completed the goals of the SUNY STRIVE seed funding:
- Officially established the Center at Downstate under the SVPR Office.
- Purchased new High-Performance Computing (HPC) nodes, exclusive for GCAISMH members.
- Affiliated 27 Downstate faculty members across schools and departments, including Psychiatry, Neurology, Genomics, Physiology & Pharmacology, and Public Health.
- Strengthened strategic partnerships, including the establishment of new collaborations - including NYC's IBM Innovation Studio.
- Launched multidisciplinary research projects -- see details below.
- Designed an Advanced Certificate course in AI, Society and Mental Health.
- Planned a Symposium (September 19) and other dissemination/outreach events, including a panel at the World Health Organization (WHO) meeting in Geneva (May 20).
🔬Established New Research Projects
We have started several research projects towards developing and deploying science-based, AI-driven solutions to address mental health challenges. Three illustrative initiatives include:
- Brain Digital Twins for precision mental healthcare: Downstate experts in neuroscience, psychiatry, and genomics are developing AI-driven brain simulations constrained by genetic and electrophysiological data to study schizophrenia, depression, and alcohol use disorders. Will be supported by AI teams at UAlbany and Microsoft AI for Health.
- Gen AI LLM chatbot for mental health support in disaster situations: Downstate and UAlbany researchers, in collaboration with NYC's IBM Innovation Studio, are developing a generative AI chatbot to deliver evidence-based mental health support in disaster settings. A prototype developed together with IBM will be available within 6 weeks.
- Therapist AI Co-Pilot: Downstate and UAlbany are developing an AI Co-Pilot to support therapists with real-time, evidence-based feedback using a multimodal GenAI foundation model trained on therapy sessions and science-based interventions. A Wellcome Trust grant proposal is planned for submission this month.
🗓 Upcoming GCAIMH Information and Q&A Session on May 28
We will be hosting an in-person and online information session that includes:
- Overview of the Center: research, education and outreach goals, organization and partnerships, ongoing initiatives, and collaboration and funding opportunities (30 min).
- Open discussion and Q&A (30 min)
- Refreshments and meet and greet / networking with other members (30 min)
- When? Wed May 28 from 3:00 - 4:30 PM
- Where? Room BSB 6-1
📩 Please RSVP here. (feel free to share with team members and colleagues)
🗓 Save the Date: GCAIMH Symposium on September 19, 2025
Please save the date -- September 19, 2025 -- to attend the 2025 GCAIMH Symposium at the SUNY Global Center in NYC. The event will bring together researchers, technologists, clinicians, and humanitarian organizations to explore cutting-edge research of AI in mental health. It will feature keynotes from leaders in the field, research talks and posters, discussion panels, and demos from tech startups. More information will follow soon.