Dr Daniel Lin | UNSW Research

My Expertise

Psychiatric Genetics, Epigenomics, Eye-Tracking Scan, Clinical Heterogeneity, Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Suicide Prevention and Intervention, Aggressive Behaviours

Keywords

genetics & heredity

autism

epidemiologic studies

Fields of Research (FoR)

Neurogenetics, Statistical and quantitative genetics, Public health, Behavioural epidemiology, Environmental epidemiology, Machine learning

Biography

Dr Lin, an adjunct associate professor at UNSW and associate professor at Saint Louis University, is a trained psychiatrist with a PhD in Psychiatric Epidemiology from Johns Hopkins University and received his postdoc research training at Duke University and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in the USA. With his cross-disciplinary training in statistics and psychiatry, Dr Lin has conducted epidemiological research focusing on intrinsic and extrinsic factors influencing mental health. Dr Lin's extensive research experience includes genetic association studies, clinical trials, eye-tracking studies, and cohort studies, using advanced statistical models including machine learning techniques. He has been actively involved in 19 competitive grants, including a multi-centre clinical trial of adolescent suicide intervention. His total funding support has exceeded $19 million (AUD). Dr Lin's research findings have been published in high-impact journals such as The Lancet and JAMA Pediatrics. His long-term career goal is to establish an integrative epidemiology program that combines clinical, experimental, and population data to translate research findings into clinical or public health practices.

My Qualifications

Education and training positions

Visiting Fellowship, Autism and Neurodevelopment Program at University of California, San Francisco, California, USA, 7/2011-9/2011

Resident in Psychiatry, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan (2008-2012)

Post-doctoral fellow in Molecular Genomics, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, New York, U.S.A. (2006-2007)

Post-doctoral fellow in Statistical Genetics, Center for Human Genetics, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina, U.S.A. (2004-2006)

PhD in Mental Health (with a focus on Genetic Epidemiology), Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A. (2005)

- PhD dissertation title: Parsing the Genetic Underpinnings of Bipolar Disorder by Age of Onset

MHS in Mental Health (with a focus on Psychiatric Epidemiology), Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A. (2002)

MD National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan (1998)

My Research Activities

Title	Description	Timeline	Contact Person/ Research team	comments
A Multi-Site Study to Compare the Outcomes of Psychiatric Treatment of Suicidal Adolescents in Different Treatment Settings (USA)	The purpose of this clinical trial is to evaluate the treatment effects of a novel outpatient-based treatment program compared with the inpatient treatment pathway for adolescents with suicidality	2019-2024	Daniel Lin	Our team is currently seeking additional 2-year funding support in lieu of COVID-19 pandemic.
A Multi-Site, Non-Intervention Study to Compare the Outcomes of Psychiatric Treatment of Suicidal Adolescents in Different Treatment Settings	The purpose of this clinical trial is to evaluate the treatment effects of the telemedicine intervention program for adolescents with suicidality.	Ongoing	Daniel Lin	Completed - planning to submit the report for publication in 2022.
Comorbidities associated with polygenic loadings in autism.	Through collaborating with University of Queensland, we are aiming to determine which clusters of comorbidity conditions may correlate with polygenic loadings in autism.	Ongoing	Daniel Lin	Collaboration with University of Queensland
Aggressive behaviors at paediatric psychiatric patients	Collaborating with Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Centre in the USA to study the predictive models for aggressive behaviors	Ongoing	Daniel Lin	ILP student project
Bullying-victimization in neurodevelopmental disorder	Collaborating with Swedish researchers to identify risk factors associated with bullying-victimization in children with neurodevelopmental disorders, with a focus on autism and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) using the national survey data.	Completed	Daniel Lin	The manuscript is current under review at JAMA Pediatrics
Exploring the role of microRNA in metabolic adverse effects associated with antipsychotics	Supervising the psychiatry registrar to conduct a pilot study that aims to identify the relationship between microRNAs and adverse metabolic effects associated with second-generation antipsychotics in individuals with a first psychotic episode.	In preparation	Daniel Lin	Psychiatry registrar project
Evaluating the role of visual attention bias in emotion dysregulation in young children	The goal of this study is to determine how eye gaze fixation patterns can be used to predict severity of emotion dysregulation (ED) and examine whether social function moderates the relationship between visual attention bias and the severity of ED.	In preparation	Daniel Lin	Honours student project
Co-designing an implementation strategy for a youth suicide prevention digital health intervention in hospitals: A scoping study.	The goal of this study is to investigate the acceptability and feasibility of digital suicide intervention programs from the perspectives of clinicians and patients/families in order to co-design an effective digital suicide intervention framework.	In preparation	Michelle Torok (Black Dog Institute)
A Digital Solution to Address the Mental Health and Financial Impacts of the Pandemic for Children and Their Parents in the First 2000 Days.	The project aims to evaluate whether the digital tool can facilitate the evaluation of the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on mental health and financial stress.	Ongoing	Valsa Eapen
Time trends of social cognitive development of children	The project aims to compare the trajectories of social cognitive developments of two cohorts before and after the COVID-19 pandemic.	Ongoing	James John
Physiological and neural synchronicity in father-child rough and tumble play	This goal of this project is to identify the characteristics of physiological (heart rate variability and electrodermal activity) and neural synchrony (measured with brain region-specific activations) in father-child dyad in the one-on-one interactive game.	In preparation	Jennifer StGeorge (University of New Castle	PhD thesis project
AI clinical project: predicting suicide risk using machine learning algorithms	This UNSW honours student project aims to evaluate how machine learning algorithms (e.g., random forest classification) can predict either suicide risk or treatment responses for suicidality.	In preparation	Daniel Lin#	Honours student project
The impact of maternal birth trauma on early neurodevelopmental outcomes of children	The goal of this study is to evaluate the effect of perinatal counseling on postnatal maternal psychological wellbeing and early neurodevelopmental outcomes of children	In preparation	Renea Makouk	Collaboration with PIMHS
Western Sydney Heatwave Mental Health Study	The goal of this study is to quantify the effect of heatwaves on the number of mental disorder presentations to emergency departments in SWSLHD.	In preparation	Matthew Barton	Psychiatry registrar study
Co-designing a neurodevelopmental assessment scale	The goal of this study is to explore the patterns of data collected using various assessment scales to re-design an integrative assessment framework.	Ongoing	Valsa Eapen	PhD thesis project
The role of socio-economic factors in access to healthcare services for children with neurodevelopmental disorders	The goal of this study is to systemically evaluate how socioeconomic and cultural factors might contribute to challenges and enablers for healthcare support for families of children with neurodevelopmental disorders.	Ongoing	Valsa Eapen	PhD thesis project
Genetics of sleep disturbances in children with autism	The goal of this study is to explore genetic factors associated with sleep quality and melatonin levels of children on autism spectrum.	Ongoing	Daniel Lin/Valsa Eapen

My Research Supervision

Supervision keywords

autism spectrum disorder

Areas of supervision

Psychiatric Clinical Research

Epidemiology of Mental Disorders

Quantitative Genomics or Epigenomics

Epidemiology and Public Health Research

Eye-tracking Research

Suicide Prevention and Intervention

Research on Violence

Currently supervising

PhD student (co-supervisor): Syeda Ishra Azim, School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales, Australia, 2021 - present
PhD student (co-supervisor): Raisa Islam (School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales, Australia), 2021 - present
PhD student (co-supervisor): Elham Zolfaghari (School of Health Sciences, University of Newcastle, Australia), 2021- present

View less