I learned about the International Advisory Board through a friend of Kathy Pike’s who was on the Board and thought that I would be interested in the program and my medical training as a general surgeon would be helpful. One year after the program began, I met with Kathy who officially invited me to join the Board. When Geoff Reed took over the Board as Center Director, he appointed me as the Vice-Chair of the International Advisory Board.
My dedication to global mental health work and engagement in the Board stems from the incontestable reality that mental illness is prevalent around the globe and touches almost every family yet it is still poorly understood and highly stigmatized. Understanding that treatment and education are both highly effective in destigmatizing mental illness and helping those affected and their families is very motivational for me. As Vice-Chair of the International Advisory Board, I seek to support the Center in its continued global research into best treatment modalities, causes of mental illness, and training of the next generation of global mental health leaders. Outside of the Board, I am a member of the Board of Trustees of Barnard College of Columbia University, advisory board member of Lost Women of Science. and advisory board member of the Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health. I earned my BA in Economics summa cum laude from Barnard College and an MD from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.