Ali Ünlü

Ali Ünlü is an interdisciplinary researcher and policy analyst with extensive international experience, dedicated to addressing complex societal issues. His career integrates qualitative and quantitative methodologies to analyze and interpret data with precision. As a former national expert in Turkey, he focused on youth mental health, substance use, and delinquency, designing prevention projects that were recognized as best practices by the European Drug Agency (EUDA).

At the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) and Aalto University in Finland, he expanded his research to public health communication, foresight research, and the application of AI methodologies in social science. Ali Ünlü's expertise in computational social science enables him to leverage AI to identify risk factors for youth mental health, substance use, violence, and crime. Additionally, he utilizes NLP and network methodologies to study diverse social media discussions, including school shootings, the treatment of violent offenders with mental health issues, drug policy, COVID-19 misinformation, vaccine hesitancy, the impact of social media bots on public health promotion, and hate speech.

Currently, Ali Ünlü contributes to various teams at UVA, enhancing their AI and machine learning research capacities. His work includes projects with Youth-Nex, Integrative Data Analysis (IDA) for Coping Power Projects, and the UVA Precision Health Initiative.

Ph.D., University of Central Florida, 2009
M.S., Roger Williams University, 2006
B.A., Turkish National Police Academy, 2000