Dr. Lin focuses his research in the area of Epidemiologic methods, employing causal inference theory to formalize concepts of mediation and pathway analysis and developing statistical and computational methods for effect decompositions. He is currently working on the methods for causal mediation analysis with time-varying and multiple mediators in complicated systems, extending mediation methods to longitudinal settings, along with corresponding software development. On the applied side, Dr. Lin is actively applying the new methods to investigate the causal mechanism for diseases including Alzheimer's disease, cardiovascular disease, and the relationship between religion and health. He is also collaborating with clinicians in a neuropsychiatric disorder such as sleep deprivation and behavioral addiction. He and his collaborators have published 37 journal papers, 18 as first or corresponding author (till December 2020), including Epidemiology, American Journal of Epidemiology, Journal of Causal Inference, Statistics in Medicine, Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, Journal of Psychiatric Research, Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health, PLoS One and so forth.