Osiris has researched ways that sociocultural and cognitive factors shape the development of self-destructive and life-preserving behaviors, especially among members of traditionally understudied communities.

Osiris’s work has focused on understanding the many different ways that people would prefer for their lives to end if they were given a choice in the matter. He suspects that these preferences, and their related attitudes and beliefs, may partially explain a broad array of preventable early deaths and long-standing health disparities. His work has also focused on the ways that people would prefer to take steps towards life-preservation, such as through seeking help for mental health issues or working towards taking care of problems on their own. The investigation of these help-seeking questions has been carried out in collaboration with members of the World Health Organization’s World Mental Health group. Osiris is working with this team to conduct a large-scale, international qualitative and mixed-methods study to understand why college students do and do not seek support.

Osiris's work has most recently focused on meta-science: the science of suicidology. His dissertation work will involve applying a semi-automated approach to systematically mapping centuries of field’s work. This mapping project will catalogue who the focus of studies has been; where have these people been studied; which topics and phenomena have been the focus of studies; and how have studies been carried out. Examining these features of studies simultaneously will allow us to better understand precisely where we have been as a field, which areas of coverage and gaps are present, and where we may go from here.

In his clinical training, Osiris has had the privilege of working with a wide range of people in need of care. This includes working with first responders and service members with substance use disorders and traumatic experiences at McLean Hospital, adolescents and young adults with co-occurring substance use and related disorders at Massachusetts General Hospital, and adults with anxiety and depressive disorders at Boston University’s Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders, adults with severe obsessive-compulsive disorder at McLean Hospital, and adults with a wide range of issues at Cambridge Health Alliance.

Osiris is deeply committed to ensuring that psychology and suicidology serve all people. Issues of diversity, inclusion, belonging, and equity are of great importance to him (and many other members of the Nock Lab). He was one of our department’s inaugural diversity and inclusion fellows, and he is an active member of our Departmental Committee on Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging. Osiris also served on a related interdepartmental committee convened by the Dean of Social Sciences to improve the inclusion and belonging experienced by our graduate students at the Social Science Division level. Finally, Osiris served as a member of the Harvard University Police Chief Search Advisory Committee, which helped with the police chief selection process, and the Harvard University Police Department Advisory Board, which helped to provide a voice for the community in engaging with the HUPD.

Regarding community mental health efforts, Osiris served on our Departmental Task Force for Assessing Graduate Student Mental Health. He was also part of a team that conducts evidence-based stress management workshops for graduate students in other departments here at Harvard. When he was a resident tutor, Osiris lived with Harvard undergraduates where he provided support as a Consent Advocacy and Relationship Education, Wellness, and STEM tutor. However, he currently lives closer to home with his wife and son while finishing out his dissertation in North Carolina.

Osiris is a 2017 recipient of the Ford Fellowship from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.