Catalyze, inspire, innovate for mental health
In this issue:
  • Events
  • GMH@H Open Day: Call for Abstracts
  • Events in the Community
  • Save the Date
  • Impact Story of the Week (*New Feature)
  • Opportunities
Events
Global Mental Health @ Harvard 2nd Annual Open Day
GMH@Harvard 2nd Annual Open Day
Celebrating the diversity of global mental health activities in our community
Evening of Friday April 12th and full day Saturday April 13th 2019
Featuring keynote speaker: Patrick J. Kennedy, former Congressman (D-RI); Founder, The Kennedy Forum; Co-Founder, One Mind; Commissioner, President's Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis.
More information on the agenda for the 2nd Annual Open Day to come. Click here for information and photos from our inaugural 2018 GMH@Harvard Open Day.

GMH@H is an initiative that aspires to elevate the profile of mental health as a fundamental public good and a universal human right. To do this, the initiative has been focusing on the following six key themes: 
  • The Mental Health Workforce
  • Mental Health Promotion Science
  • Global Mental Health Delivery Science
  • Human Rights
  • Countdown Mental Health
  • Building our GMH Community
As a part of the 2nd Annual Open Day we are inviting faculty, staff, students (undergraduate and graduate), post-docs and trainees in our Harvard affiliated community to present on the work they are already doing that falls under one of the above 6 themes ( click here for the goals and descriptions of the themes) . Presentations will be under 10 minutes and should be a highlight of your work. Abstracts will be accepted until February 20th 2019. The GMH@Harvard Steering and Management Committees will select proposals for each theme to present at the Open Day. You will be notified whether or not your proposal is selected by March 9th. 
  • Must relate to one of the six key themes
  • Work to be presented can include, but is not limited to: research, education initiatives, practice, art, or community service.
  • Less than 500 words
  • 3 main bullet points about the work you intend to present
Global Mental Health Events in the Community
A Student Conference at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
February 8th 2019 8:30am-8:00pm - Tickets are sold out, but you can join by live-stream
Over the past two decades, the field of global health has become extremely popular, while remaining relatively ill-defined. Proposed definitions are generally depoliticized and include invocations of trans-national health issues and collaborations. Yet global health is only the newest iteration of what was formerly “international health”, “tropical medicine” and “colonial medicine”. The historical roots of global health lie in European colonial endeavors and imperial interests. Just as those reflected the unequal power relations of that time, global health reflects the unequal relations of present. North American and European universities, including Harvard, play a big role in this nebulous field. While “global” invokes universalism, the reality is that it is a deeply unequal project... This conference aims to help change that status quo. We want to ask reflexive and difficult questions... READ MORE HERE.

Harvard Law School Project on Disability Lunchtime Talk and co-hosted by GMH@Harvard
Tuesday February 19, 2019 12:00pm
Morgan Courtroom, Austin Hall, 3rd Floor Harvard Law School
Chapter reading on the history of mental health in the US after the Civil War by Ari Ne’eman co-founder of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network . Questions and to RSVP email Juliet Bowler .
Save the Date
More information to come for the following GMH related events in the community:

Thursday Brown Bag Series
HSPH Department of Global Health & Population
Thursday March 14: Presenter: Satchit Balsari, Assistant Professor, Emergency Medicine, HMS/BIDMC; Fellow, FXB Center for Health and Human Rights
Thursday March 28: Presenter: Shekhar Saxena , Professor of the Practice of Global Mental Health, GHP
*NEW FEATURE* - Global Mental Health Impact Story of the Week
In each newsletter we will be highlighting an "Impact Story of the Week" this will be a spotlight on either a person, organization, initiative, course, research project, or student group in our community who are working in the global mental health field.
Join us in welcoming Shekhar Saxena who has been appointed to Harvard Chan School’s faculty as professor of the practice of global mental health in the Department of Global Health and Population, effective October 1, 2018. Dr. Saxena is also a member of our GMH@H Steering Committee. Dr. Saxena joined the School as visiting professor of global mental health in July 2018, after having served for eight years as director of the department of mental health and substance abuse at the World Health Organization (WHO), where he assisted all governments to strengthen their health systems to deliver services for mental, brain, and substance use disorders. He also supported research capacity building on public mental health in low- and middle-income countries. The significant themes of this work include mental health policy and resources within countries; evidence-based guidelines for mental, neurological, and substance use disorders; diagnosis and classification of mental disorders; and research prioritization, specifically, addressing the imbalance between research from high- versus low-income countries. He established strong links between WHO and civil society organizations to improve human rights situations for people living with mental disorders. His most recent contribution to scientific literature is as a joint lead editor of the Lancet Commission on Global Mental Health and Sustainable Development published in October 2018.

With the new University-wide GlobalMentalHealth@Harvard initiative, Dr. Saxena will participate in expanding existing research and education capacities in mental health in the areas of implementation science, policy, and practice, including advancing novel delivery platforms to scale up prevention and care services as well as developing metrics to better understand consequences of suboptimal mental health. He will bring new resources for students who seek training on mental health research, program evaluation, and policy implementation, and our community will benefit from his leadership and intergovernmental experience.

Dr. Saxena earned his BSc from Bhopal University (now Barkatullah University) in India, finishing first in his class. He went on to earn an MBBS and MD in psychiatry from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi as well as a Diploma in Addiction Behavior from the University of London. He completed his residency at AIIMS, joined the faculty as an assistant professor in the department of psychiatry, and continued his career there as associate professor and additional professor. He joined WHO in 1998 and was based at its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland to work full time in public health. He is a recipient of the Leon Eisenberg Award for lifetime contribution to developmental psychiatry and mental health from Harvard Medical School and the Suzanne and Bob Wright Autism Achievement Award from Autism Speaks.

Follow Dr. Saxena on Twitter at @ssaxenageneva and read The Lancet's recent profile on him .
Opportunities
We are seeking one research fellow (minimum 2-year term) with training in psychology, epidemiology, genetics and/or biostatistics to be involved in an interdisciplinary program of research on schizophrenia and bipolar disorder in African populations. The fellow will be physically located in Boston, USA at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health working closely with Dr. Karestan C. Koenen and her research group. The deadline for applying is February 15, 2019.

The funding will support pioneering research at early stages of development that focuses on positive health science or communication and translation sciences related to positive health science. All Harvard faculty, research scientists, and post-doctoral research scholars are eligible to apply. The deadline for applying is February 15, 2019.  Interested? Please contact: Jaime Mchunu

The Dr. Mario Pagenel Fellowship in Global Mental Health Delivery provides an opportunity for career development in global mental health service delivery and research for post-graduate psychiatrists. Fellows develop expertise in the field while working in Haiti or Rwanda with Partners In Health (PIH) and in collaboration with the Harvard Medical School Department of Global Health and Social Medicine. Applications for the Dr. Mario Pagenel Global Health Fellowship in Haiti and Rwanda are currently being accepted. All applications are due by February 15, 2019 for a Summer 2019 start date. Interested? Please contact: Amruta Houde

Made possible through the generous support of Harvard alumna Katherine States Burke, AB’79, and her husband, T. Robert Burke, the fellowship was created to help launch and advance the careers of promising junior faculty in global health – which in almost 10 years, has done so for over 30 Harvard faculty! The Burke Global Health Fellowship offers two types of funding: research awards up to $75,000 and curriculum development and teaching awards up to $25,000. Harvard University junior faculty have through February 15, 2019 to submit their Letter of Intent (LoI). Following an intense review period in spring 2019, applicants will be notified if their LoI has been accepted and will be asked to submit a full proposal. If then awarded, Fellows will be provided their allotted funding from July 1, 2019 – June 30, 2020. All applications are due by February 15, 2019.

The Geneva Challenge aims to encourage interdisciplinary problem solving analysis among master students on advancing human development within the scope of a relevant topic.
Global Health is a defining challenge of tomorrow’s world and is a critical concern for both developing and developed countries. As the key to this issue is an interdisciplinary solution, crossing traditional boundaries between academic disciplines, we are inviting Master students from all academic programmes and from anywhere in the world to provide helpful strategic recommendations. Five prizes, one per continent, we will be distributed. Registrations close on 24th March 2019. Submission due by 15th July 2019.
Do you have something to share with the GMH community?
Email Juliana Restivo at GMH_Admin@hms.harvard.edu and we will include it in our next
Global Mental Health @ Harvard Newsletter!