Maya Patel is a rising senior at Barnard College, majoring in Psychology with minors in Science and Public Policy and Applied Statistics. She is also an incoming 4+1 Master of
Public Health student in Epidemiology at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health. Maya’s passion for global mental health is rooted in her observations of the cultural silence and stigma surrounding mental illness within South Asian communities and the profound impact of this silence on psychological well-being. Her research interests lie in psychiatric epidemiology and the application of quantitative methods to understand global mental health disparities and the determinants of psychiatric disorders.
This summer, Maya worked under the supervision of Dr. Claire Greene to examine mental health and well-being at the intersection of migration, displacement, and humanitarian response. Her primary responsibilities included conducting data analysis and visualization of the 2025 Socio-Economic Insights Survey to support the preparation of the UNHCR report, Navigating Health and Well-Being Challenges for Refugees from Ukraine. Maya is also engaged in a secondary quantitative analysis project using data from Entre Nosotras, a community-based psychosocial intervention for refugee, migrant, and host-community women in Ecuador and Panamá. She is exploring whether length of residence moderates changes in social support and psychosocial outcomes.
Maya expresses her gratitude for the mentorship, collaborations, and opportunities to apply data analysis skills to real-world global mental health research. She eagerly anticipates continuing to contribute to both projects through August and to building upon this experience as she progresses in her public health journey.