Volunteer Research Assistant

Black Mental Health Matters Inc is a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing mental health awareness, resources, and support within Black communities. They are seeking a Volunteer Research Assistant to support research in AI/ML mental health models, grant opportunities, and community program evaluations.

Responsibilities:

• Research best practices, published literature, and case studies on AI/ML models used in mental health contexts (e.g., conversational AI, sentiment/risk detection, culturally-specific NLP applications)
• Support evaluation of open-source Small Language Models (SLMs) and fine-tuning approaches (e.g., LLaMA-based models, QLoRA/PEFT methods) for relevance to BMHM's mental health use cases
• Summarize findings on model safety, bias, and appropriateness for use with culturally specific and vulnerable populations
• Assist the AI/ML Engineering team by researching evaluation frameworks that help prevent hallucination or harmful outputs in mental health-focused models
• Track emerging tools, datasets, and academic research relevant to Black mental health and AI applications
• Identify and compile grant opportunities (foundation, corporate, and government) aligned with BMHM's mission and current programs
• Research eligibility requirements, deadlines, funding priorities, and application processes for prospective funders
• Maintain an organized, up-to-date grants pipeline/tracker for the team
• Support the drafting of grant research summaries and briefing documents for the Executive Producer and leadership team
• Research comparable organizations' funding models and successful grant strategies for reference
• Research best practices and existing models for community mental health programming, particularly within Black communities
• Support the design and evaluation of BMHM programs and initiatives with relevant data, statistics, and comparable case studies
• Compile research on mental health outcomes, disparities, and needs specific to the communities BMHM serves
• Assist in developing surveys, evaluation frameworks, or feedback tools to help measure program impact
• Prepare clear, concise research summaries and briefs for internal program planning discussions
• Monitor and review peer-reviewed mental health research journals and academic publications for findings relevant to Black mental health and BMHM's programming
• Research and propose timely, culturally relevant topics for upcoming BMHM Show episodes (Panel and One-on-One formats), grounded in current published research
• Compile background research briefs on each topic, citing relevant journal articles, statistics, and community context, for hosts and producers
• Research potential guests, specialists, and subject-matter experts aligned with proposed topics and published research areas
• Maintain an organized reference library/tracker of relevant journal articles and studies for ongoing use by the production and programs teams
• Support fact-checking and source verification for claims or statistics used in show scripts and promotional content, citing published research where applicable