Dr. Young Chung

Biography

Young Chung is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Yale School of Medicine, focusing on Behavioral Medicine within the Clinical Community Psychology internship program. His primary placement is at Yale New Haven Hospital. He is a doctoral candidate in the clinical psychology Ph.D. program at Pennsylvania State University. Young earned his master’s degree in Clinical Counseling Psychology from Seoul National University, and holds a B.A. in Psychology and Art History from Swarthmore College. He is broadly trained in evidence-based treatments, including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Transference-focused Psychodynamic Therapy, and Neuropsychology. Young is passionate about working with patients who face diverse physical health concerns that present with co-occurring mood problems, substance use (particularly tobacco cessation), sleep difficulties, pain, sexual health issues, and psycho-oncology in integrated care settings. His research focuses on examining the neural and psychological factors that make changing appetitive risk behaviors—such as smoking and high caloric food consumption—difficult. He employs a multi-method research approach that includes fMRI neuroimaging, experience sampling methods, questionnaires, and behavioral coding tasks. His dissertation investigates individuals with comorbid emotional and substance use disorders, particularly transdiagnostic vulnerabilities that impact the motivational processes underlying smoking lapses during cessation. His long-term goal is to conduct translational research that delivers mechanism-based substance use treatments within medical settings for a variety of health-risk behaviors.

Research Interests