Dr. Zelazny has over 35 years of psychiatric nursing experience in clinical and research settings. Her research is focused on the use of technology to identify and manage suicidal thoughts and behavior in youth. She is the principal investigator of an R21 funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) entitled “Social Media as a Predictor of Proximal Risk in Youth Suicide Attempt”.
She is also a co-investigator on 3 additional NIMH funded studies, including: (1) a study using smartphone technology to conduct intensive longitudinal monitoring of proximal risk factors of adolescent suicidal thoughts and behavior; (2) a study comparing sleep-suicide associations in adolescents at ultra-high risk for suicide; and (3) Dr. Brent’s ETUDES Center, where she will be co-leading a Methods core study along with Dr. Biernesser combining mobile sensing and social media data for the prediction of fluctuations in suicide risk in adolescents.
In collaboration with colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), she is conducting a pilot study examining ethical issues and using Human Centered Design for the implementation of a suicide risk prediction algorithm into clinical care. She is a co-developer of a supportive safety plan phone application for patients with high levels of suicidal ideation or recent suicidal behavior and a co-author of the Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale (C-SSRS).
In addition to these research interests, she has a strong interest in bioethics, specifically the protection of human subjects in research involving technology and in research involving suicidal individuals.