Jackelyn Samandas graduated from Kenyon College, May 2025, as a Russian and Psychology double major. She pursued these two interests in order to better serve the mental health needs of Russian-speaking migrant communities. Observing her own refugee family, she became concerned with how structural stigma targeting marginalized identities was associated with trauma and the experience of mental illness. The multiplicity of observable violence worldwide challenged her to concretize how the perpetuity of forced displacement and severed access to resources along the migration process also exacerbated mental health concerns.
While studying abroad in Qazaqstan Fall 2023, Jackelyn began exploring the impacts of the Soviet healthcare model and understanding of psychiatric illness for contemporary help-seeking behavior among Qazaqstani individuals. Jackelyn continued this line of research during the Summer 2024 CCGMH internship. She conducted literature reviews and created data tables for a couples-based intervention supporting ART (Anti-retroviral therapy) adherence among HIV+ PWID (persons who inject drugs) with Dr. Alissa Davis. Dr. Davis’s connections with Dr. Gaukhar Mergenova allowed Jackelyn to collaborate with local researchers on a COVID-19 data manuscript-development. Jackelyn was able to use her knowledge of Russian and Qazaq to facilitate cross-cultural interactions and, alongside doctoral student Yi Yihang Sun, work with multilingual data.
Jackelyn joined the Summer 2025 CCGMH Leadership Team to support likeminded researchers to explore their interests in global mental health. Starting Fall 2025, she will be a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Qazaqstan, while continuing to contribute to research in this field.