GMH@Harvard: “How Did I Get Here?” Career Paths in Mental Health Series – Clinical focus

The September 24th webinar will include three individuals based in Boston at Harvard affiliated schools/hospitals sharing about their clinical career paths and how they balance their clinical work in Boston among other global mental health activities that they are involved in.

Click here to register for the Zoom link!

Panelists:

• Dr. Alex Tsai, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; Director of the Program on Social Policy and Behavioral Health, Center for Global Health and Mongan Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital
• Dr. Emma Cardeli, Attending Psychologist & Research Associate, Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School
• Dr. Rachel Vanderkruik, Research and Clinical Fellow, Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Ammon-Pinizzotto Center for Women’s Mental Health

Moderated by:

• Sriramya Potluri, Doctoral Student, Clinical Psychology, University of Massachusetts Boston

The purpose of the panel webinar series is to highlight and learn from the career paths of individuals who have been successful in diverse aspects of global mental health work. These seminars will seek to connect students and interested individuals to professionals in the field by understanding their career paths and how their passion and experiences led them to pursue a career in global mental health. It also serves to encourage individuals to find their own path in the global mental health community.

The structure will be a facilitated panel discussion with three/four individuals who will be asked questions about their experience and advice they have for students and early career professionals. There will also be time for audience questions and discussion.

Speaker Bios:

 Dr. Alexander Tsai is a board-certified psychiatrist at the Massachusetts General Hospital, where he is Director of the Program on Social Policy and Behavioral Health in the Center for Global Health and Mongan Institute. He is also an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Through his research, he seeks to understand how large-scale social forces such as violence, stigma, and food and water insecurity conspire to undermine health and mental health among the poor and excluded, both domestically and globally. This work is motivated by both biomedical and social science theory and draws on a broad set of methods, including econometrics, ethnography, and epidemiology. In 2011, Dr. Tsai received the American Psychiatric Association’s Health Services Research Early Career Award, which is given annually to a single psychiatrist under the age of 40. He has also received recognition for his mentorship of undergraduate, graduate, and medical students; residents and clinical fellows; and junior faculty members across numerous disciplines—ranging from obstetrics/gynecology to population health science to urban planning—at Harvard-affiliated institutions and other academic institutions throughout the Boston area. Prior to his appointment at Mass General, he completed a Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholars postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University and his residency training in general adult psychiatry at the University of California at San Francisco.

Dr. Emma Cardeli is a Clinical Psychologist with over a decade of experience working with trauma exposed children, adolescents, and adults from a variety of cultural backgrounds and in a myriad of clinical settings (e.g., outpatient clinics, inpatient psychiatry/medical, juvenile justice, residential, child welfare, and emergency services). Dr. Cardeli provides training and consultation in Trauma Systems Therapy for Refugees, and is leading several initiatives across the globe focused on building capacity of organizations to provide trauma-informed care. Her research focuses on violence prevention and distilling effective methodologies for strengthening health systems to better meet the needs of underserved populations.

Dr. Rachel Vanderkruik is a Clinical and Research Postdoctoral Fellow with the Center for Women’s Mental Health at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). She completed her predoctoral internship in the Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) track at MGH as she received her PhD in Clinical Psychology from University of Colorado Boulder. She has been trained in evidence-based psychotherapies, including CBT, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). Rachel also has a Masters in Science from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health where she concentrated in Maternal and Child Health. Her work focuses on the promotion of women’s mental health and wellbeing, particularly during transition time periods (e.g., pregnancy and the postpartum, adolescence). Rachel has served as a Consultant for the World Health Organization (WHO) in the Department of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research on projects related to maternal morbidity, mental health of adolescents following a key sexual/reproductive health event, and the development of a psychosocial intervention for young refugee women living in humanitarian settings. She has training in Mixed Methods Research, Implementation Research, and Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR). Rachel is passionate about increasing access to evidence-based interventions and services through novel delivery methods (e.g., online platforms, peer delivery, and integrated care) and addressing disparities in mental health access and outcomes nationally and on a global scale.