“I came to the University of Utah right after finishing high school. I wanted to earn a biology degree and do something along the lines of wildlife conservation or ecology. I thought I was dead set on that, but after a four-month trip to Southeast Asia doing various wildlife conservation projects, I realized it was not what I wanted to do long term.

After I came home, I kept pursuing a biology degree, unsure of my path. I’ve always been an analytical thinker, yet I failed calculus II. I felt uneasy with the notion that I “wasn’t good at math” and realized that I had never actually tried to understand the subject. To my surprise, I set my sights on a new challenge— majoring in my worst subject, mathematics. It wasn’t easy making this switch, but I eventually understood math as a language that explains the world around us. I earned my bachelor’s degree in math with an emphasis in statistics in 2016.

I then went on to earn my master’s degree in biostatistics from the Division of Public Health in the School of Medicine at the U in 2018. Shortly after graduating, I took a full-time position as a Biostatistician II at the Social Research Institute in the College of Social Work at the U, working on a Title IV-E Research contract with the Utah Division of Child and Family Services. Eventually, I worked my way up to Associate Director, serving as principal investigator, PI, across several program evaluation and human services research contracts. Swearing I’d never do a Ph.D., I was eventually convinced by a colleague of mine. Now I have completed everything but my dissertation in the Learning and Cognition program in Educational Psychology at the U.

Part of the work I am doing for my Ph.D. has been connecting with a multidisciplinary team from educational and clinical psychology, the Huntsman Mental Health Institute and the computer science department at U to look at integrating artificial intelligence, AI, and machine learning tools to assist text-based crisis counselors in identifying client risk of suicide and managing caseloads. We’ve been analyzing data from SafeUT, an anonymous text-based crisis counseling and mobile tipline where clients can text into the service at any time and connect with a licensed counselor in seconds. This means we have a lot of text-based data and can use natural language processing or other tools to assist counselors in identifying indicators and levels of client risk of suicide.

This is important because these text-based systems are seeing an increased number of users each day, and it can take time to understand how they are functioning. There are a lot of ways in which AI could help us better meet the mental health needs of clients and identify risk factors related to suicide. In my perspective, AI is here to stay, so we should figure out how to make it work for us in a way that is both ethical and beneficial to society.

Ultimately, all I’ve ever really wanted to do is help people by using my skills with data and statistics to make a lasting, positive impact on society. I didn’t know social work would be the field I ended up in, but life never really goes according to plan. I’ve tended to jump headfirst into new opportunities and would encourage others to do the same. You never know where the next opportunity will take you.”

— Meghan Broadbent, Research Assistant Professor, Social Research Institute