Mass General Brigham Internship Position with Anushka Patel

Program Type

SURGH

Organization Name

Mass General Brigham – Anushka Patel

Internship Location

Cambridge, USA

Organization

Dr. Anushka Patel is a trauma-focused clinical psychologist and Assistant Professor at Mass General Brigham and Harvard Medical School. As trauma can cause posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety, she has acquired clinical and research expertise in all three disorders with many distinct populations over the past 12 years. Her program of research is founded on (1) culturally sensitive assessment and treatment of trauma-related problems, (2) scalable models of population-based care and capacity-building among non-specialists, (3) deploying digital technologies to close the treatment gaps that exist worldwide, and (4) suicide prevention, with a focus on enhancing cultural and community protective factors.

Position Overview

This position is working directly with Dr. Anushka Patel. Dr. Patel is a mixed-method researcher interested in getting treatments to people who do not have access traditionally (e.g., people in low-and-middle-income countries or people who are in low-resource pockets of high-income countries).

Dr. Patel is currently working on several projects and has opportunities for students to contribute in multiple ways, including active data collection and analysis. The main project Dr. Patel is working on is a systematic review and meta-analysis spanning 25 years of work on non-specialist-delivered treatments for trauma-exposed populations worldwide. The guiding research question is: Can non-specialists (e.g., community workers, nurses) deliver psychological treatments to survivors of war trauma and interpersonal violence?

Project Details

The intern will work alongside Dr. Patel on data linked with a systematic review and meta-analysis focused on safe and effective delivery of trauma treatments for war trauma and interpersonal trauma by nonspecialists.

The dataset includes approximately 105 studies, with 45 included in a main-effects meta-analysis under review. Because of the size of the dataset, the intern will have the chance to carve out a research question and systematically analyze it. Depending on interests, the intern can conduct new searches to supplement the original research questions.

The role may also include opportunities to participate in community-engaged research meetings.

Intern Responsibilities

Specific project responsibilities may vary and are dependent upon intern interests/skills. Responsibilities may include for the intern to:

I. Propose their own project (secondary data analyses):

• Read literature in an overlapping area of interest

• Draft concept notes and formulate research questions

• Request datasets from Harvard Dataverse or other sources

• Conduct statistical analyses

• Write regularly toward publication

• Communicate consistently, meet deadlines, ask for guidance as needed, manage timelines, and work both independently and collaboratively

II. Join the structured systematic review/meta-analysis project:

• Read academic articles to extract data

• Maintain an organized database (Excel)

• Stay organized with all project components

• Write syntheses (e.g., patterns across variables)

• Conduct descriptive analyses (percentages, means, medians)

• Submit manuscripts for peer review

• Maintain regular communication, meet deadlines, and manage timelines

III. Work on qualitative study components:
Using existing qualitative datasets from:

• Women who experienced gender-based violence

• Key informants who treat survivors

• Frontline providers (lawyers, police, healthcare workers)

The intern will be mentored closely, learn qualitative analysis skills, develop research questions, manage timelines toward a publication, and maintain professional standards of conduct.

Qualifications

Preferred educational background: psychology, neuroscience, social studies, government, biology, social determinants of health, public health
Required skills: detail-oriented, strong writing skills, timeline and deadline management, strong communication/interpersonal skills, desire for graduate school admission, desire for publication credit, responsiveness to feedback
Preferred skills: experience in quantitative methods, ability to multitask across studies

Learning Outcomes

The intern will receive hands-on learning opportunities through their primary project and cross-project exposure. Intern may earn authorship in a supporting role on existing analyses. If the intern develops a new research question and manages the project efficiently to completion, they may earn first or co–first authorship.

Nature of Internship

Mental Health

Keywords

Global mental health; technology-assisted interventions; community-engaged research; trauma interventions; PTSD; depression; competency and capacity-building; digitally enhanced interventions; task-sharing

Additional Onboarding for Selected Intern(s)

Clinical research CITI training

Work Environment

Hybrid