2023-24 Traveling Fellow
Making, Erasing, and Researching Mental Health

Joseph is exploring how historical, political, and cultural influences shape the ways people conceive and approach mental health. In particular, he is concerned with dominant narratives that situate mental health as a medical fact. How and why have clinical language and methods come to possess such influence? How does medicalization relate to historic and ongoing colonialism? And how do people around the world resist the shift from mind to brain? Joseph hopes to speak with researchers, politicians, clinicians, and (most importantly) laypeople who often go unrepresented in both normative and critical discourse.

Find him reading through archives, asking for advice on Reddit, and studying local bugs (his other pastime) during his year of travel!

Hometown: Cumming, GA
Majors/Minors: Cognitive Studies, Math, and Medicine, Health & Society

Joseph (he/him) was born in Atlanta and raised in Cumming, GA, one of five children to his Irish Catholic, immigrant parents. He spent his K-12 education in Forsyth County Public Schools and found a passion for research after being forced into a science fair in the eighth grade. Paired with his own lived experiences and devotion to affected loved ones, Joseph has been studying mental health ever since.

At Vanderbilt — where he is a Cornelius Vanderbilt Scholar and graduating with a triple major in Cognitive Studies, Math, and Medicine, Health & Society — Joseph became more interested in mental health activism and the gaps that separate scholarly communities from the people they purport to serve. He organized the inaugural Vanderbilt Critical Psychiatry Conference in January 2022 to help address this disparity, and in April 2023 Joseph directed the more expansive Conference on Critical Psychiatry with a global audience and lineup of over 20 speakers. Joseph also created and directs Vanderbilt Mental Health Reform, a group that usually meets biweekly to engage with critical discourse concerning mental health and wellbeing. Outside of mental health advocacy, Joseph has led introductory fellowships with Vanderbilt Effective Altruism and also served as an RA for first-year students on the Commons during his sophomore and junior years.

For his contributions in science and advocacy, Joseph has been recognized as a Goldwater Scholar, the nation’s most prestigious award for promising future scientists; named to Mental Health America’s Young Mental Health Leaders Council as one of ten changemakers in 2021-22; and awarded with the JED Foundation’s 2022 Student Voice of Mental Health Award.