Across the work of Guiying (Angel) Zhong – a portrait artist, activist, and social science researcher–  common themes emerge: Mending what is broken; filling the cracks in what is missing; expressing truth that can elude words.

Zhong (she/they), one of the nine Junior Professional Researchers who joined the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research (ISR) this year, is a queer, first-generation college graduate, whose single mother emigrated from China when she was young. In their home in Walnut Creek, Calif., low income, language barriers, mental health challenges, and intergenerational trauma created a climate of “survival, rather than thriving,” and conditions in youth that Zhong said could be felt but not, at that time, described. Mother-and-child portraits in their high school portfolio explored this theme under the title, “Courage under Pressure.”

The photographer Henri Cartier-Besson wrote, “In a portrait, I’m looking for the silence in somebody.” This self-portrait by Guiying (Angel) Zhong was part of her high school portfolio series, “Courage Under Pressure.” This work was inspired by the Japanese art of kintsugi, which consists of repairing broken pottery by filling in the cracks with golden lacquer, so that the piece is all the more beautiful with the breakage. Zhong’s research is focused on mending what is broken and providing tools for marginalized groups to talk about their experiences.

‘Building capacity for wellness’

“Being in survival mode for an extended period of time means that your focus is always on mitigating adversity, versus building capacity for wellness,” said Zhong– a sentence she said she could not have formulated before going to college.

Zhong flourished at the University of the Pacific. Majoring in psychology and English with minors in writing and ethnic studies, they became passionate about making research relevant and accessible to communities outside of academia. She was a leader in student government and initiatives of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, a volunteer for community service groups for mental health and food justice, and an activist for educational equity, anti-racism, and queer issues. 

After graduating in 2023, Zhong had been working at the University of Wisconsin in Madison on the Neighborhood Study– a project revealing how where people live across the lifespan can influence cognitive decline– when they noticed a post for the Junior Professional Researcher position on LinkedIn. Zhong was missing the hands-on aspect of community work serving marginalized communities– the kind that evinces immediate proof of research impact. 

Promoting Community Conversations about Research to End Suicide

The Junior Professional Research Program at ISR provides opportunities for recent college graduates to catapult careers in social science with hands-on mentorship, collaboration, and experience.

Zhong was paired with mentor Lisa Wexler of ISR’s Research Center for Group Dynamics to work on a project that adapts suicide prevention strategies to different communities, including Alaska Native communities that struggle with the structural violence of racism and colonization and have suicide rates among the highest in the nation.

The project known as PC CARES– Promoting Community Conversations About Research to End Suicide– is one that mobilizes community members to create self-determined, research-informed activities to prevent suicide and promote health. The intervention was added to the Best Practices Registry this fall on the Suicide Prevention Resource Center webpage. Translating research into community-determined solutions is a core element of the PC CARES approach– providing solutions that Zhong said are blocked when we think of suicide as an individual issue.

“For a lot of Alaska Native communities, youth suicide didn’t actually emerge until the 1960s, which aligns with policies related to dispacement and the legacy of colonization,” said Zhong. “When we think of suicide as solely a mental health issue that isn’t tied to these historical systems, then we actually lose the opportunity to fully address why it happens in historically marginalized communities. PC CARES is trying to combat that not only by shining a light on the link between colonization and Indigenous youth suicide, but using Indigenous pedagogy and healing practices to talk about the information.” 

PC CARES is facilitated by local community members, and uses a series  of “learning circles” that provide sessions for non-hierarchical discussions that emphasize the lived expertise of the community.

Scaling Up Epistemic Justice

Zhong finds meaning in giving those who are marginalized the tools to articulate their experiences. 

“There’s a concept in philosophy that describes epistemic injustice– where your knowledge is not only being erased, but being deprived from you; you face a double injustice when you are not only marginalized but barred from the tools to articulate those experiences, ” said Zhong. “In the context of PC CARES, that’s what’s happened as a result of colonization. And in other contexts– for queer communities and communities of color, it’s the same thing. I’m working from this personal place where I don’t want people to face that double injustice anymore.”

At PC CARES, Zhong is working to scale up the intervention, translating the findings into scientific products that can be used in other communities. PC CARES is partnering with the Rural Human Services Program which is a part of the Department of Indigenous Studies at the University of Alaska Fairbanks to bring the intervention to new communities in Alaska, and has work underway to adapt the program for native communities in Michigan. Through this work, Zhong is directly engaging with institutions, community leaders, and a research advisory board from different regions of Alaska.

“I’ve learned research is a much broader collaborative process than I had previously imagined,” said Zhong. 

They plan to pursue a PhD focused on community-based participatory research, potentially in applied social psychology.

“My 50-year goal is to make the research pipeline a place where everyone, especially those who have been historically silenced, feel like their voices are being listened to and prioritized,” she said.

Guiying (Angel) Zhong is a past board member of the Uplift Foundation, which distributes rapid grants to women, especially single mothers, in crisis– and a current board member of Youth MOVE National, promoting youth leadership in advocacy. They were an inaugural  Mental Health Policy Fellow with the mental health advocacy organization, Inseparable.

Interested in becoming a JPR Scholar? The application period is open until February 2, 2025. 

Contact: Tevah Platt