Research Areas

01

Policy-Aligned AI for Child Welfare

AI-assisted quality assurance for CPS investigation summaries: detecting missing evidence, temporal inconsistencies, and misalignment with policy rules and accountability standards.

NLPLLMChild WelfareQA Systems
02

Human-Centered AI Oversight

Validation layers, explainability workflows, documentation review, and human-in-the-loop systems designed for high-stakes decisions in public-sector social services.

Human-in-the-LoopHuman-on-the-LoopExplainabilityAI Governance
03

Computational Social Work

NLP, RAG, machine learning, social network analysis, and computational methods applied to social work and public health research — connecting structural theory with quantitative evidence.

SNARAGMachine LearningMixed Methods
04

Technology as Social Infrastructure

Digital systems, AI capacity-building, and tools that help social service organizations reach people at scale — treating technology as infrastructure, not optimization.

AI CapacitySocial WelfarePublic Systems

Publications & Working Papers

2021 Published

Applying statistical machine learning methods to analyze differences in the severity level of COVID-19 among countries

Yin, W., Pan, C., Deng, N., & Ji, D. · Journal of Software, 16(5), 219–234

2020 Published

Application of social network analysis of COVID-19 related tweets mentioning cannabis and opioids to gain insights for drug abuse research

Yoon, S., Odlum, M., Broadwell, P., Davis, N., Cho, H., Deng, N., Patrao, M., et al. · In The Importance of Health Informatics in Public Health during a Pandemic, 5–8