Subin Na

Subin Na is a PhD student in Social Welfare at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy & Practice, advised by Dr. Phyllis Solomon. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Social Welfare and Economics from Seoul National University, where she graduated summa cum laude, and a Master of Arts in Social Welfare from the same institution. During her doctoral studies, she has been awarded a scholarship from the Korea Foundation for Advanced Studies. She is a Licensed Social Worker in Pennsylvania and a certified social worker in the Republic of Korea.
Her research examines how mental health systems can be designed, implemented, and improved to promote recovery and equitable access to care. She focuses on peer support services, help-seeking and service utilization, mental health equity among Asian and immigrant communities, and the implementation of innovative models of care. Her interest in these questions grew out of her clinical work as a mental health social worker in Korea, where she saw how often a diagnosis came to define a person’s life and how rarely people living with mental illness were asked what recovery should mean to them.
Methodologically, she uses quantitative, computational, and mixed methods, including machine learning and predictive modeling, natural language processing, multilevel and longitudinal modeling, and evidence synthesis, to generate evidence that informs mental health policy, service delivery, and implementation.