This research is about more than just understanding the heat-mental health connection—it's about preparing for the mental health challenges of climate change. Our goal is to identify specific targets and develop and test solutions to help inform clinical guidelines and reduce human suffering.
We're committed to mentoring the next generation of researchers in this emerging field and sharing our methods so other scientists can ask similar questions. We also integrate the perspectives and experiences of people who have lived with mental health conditions into every aspect of our research, from design to sharing results.
We also believe in meeting people where they are. That means sharing our findings not just in academic journals, but through social media, news outlets, and other channels that reach the communities we're studying. We're developing training materials for mental health professionals because we believe all providers will need to understand climate impacts on their patients in the coming decades.
Our work crosses medical specialties, and while our primary focus is heat, we recognize that many environmental factors affect mental health—from air quality and microplastics to climate-related anxiety and trauma from extreme weather events. The name of our lab - "HEAT-MIND: Healthy Environments and Temperatures – Mechanisms in Neuropsychiatric Disorders” - reflects this broader mission.