Trauma and Global Health Fellows
The Trauma and Global Health Program offers a limited number of awards on a competitive basis. Summer Student Fellowships and In-Service Research and Training Scholarships are available to low and middle income country (LMIC) participants. Small research grants are available to McGill students. The following students were awarded a TGH fellowship in current and past years.
May 2008
udenia1 [at] yahoo.com (Udeni Appuhamilage) was awarded a McGill T-GH Summer Student Fellowship in Mental Health. The fellowship included participation in the Fourteenth Summer Course in Social and Cultural Psychiatry). Udeni received a Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology from the Illinois School of Professional Psychology in Chicago, USA. Udeni is currently a consultant researcher for Save the Children Sri Lanka and the Center for Policy Alternatives, as well as a Department of Philosophy and Psychology lecturer at the University of Peradeniya.
Udeni Appuhamilage - Fellowship Report
May 2008
shavindra17 [at] yahoo.co.uk (Shavindra Dias) was awarded a McGill T-GH Summer Student Fellowship in Mental Health. The fellowship included the participation in the Fourteenth Summer Course in Social and Cultural Psychiatry). Shavindra holds a medical degree in Psychiatry from the University of Colombo in Sri Lanka. He is currently employed as a lecturer with the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Peradeniya.
Shavindra Dias - Fellowship Report
May 2008
rp [at] cvict.org.np (Ram Prasad Sapkota) was awarded a McGill In-Service Research & Training Scholarship in Mental Health, April 29th until June 2nd, 2008. The scholarship included participation in the Fourteenth Summer Course in Social and Cultural Psychiatry. RP holds Masters' degrees in Psychology and Rural Development from Tribhuvan Universityin Nepal. Since June 2007, Sapkota has worked as a Research Coordinator at the Centre for Victims of Torture (CVICT) in Kathmandu.
RP Sapkota - Fellowship Report
November 2007
Paula Godoy Paiz was awarded a GHRI Teasdale-Corti Team Grant to pursue the final stage of her research in Guatemala, where she was investigating the impact of distinct and interrelated forms of violence on the everyday lives, practices, social relations and well-being of indigenous and ladina (non-indigenous) women. Paula is currently a PhD candidate in Anthropology at McGill University. She received her MA in Social Anthropology from York University and won the Faculty of Graduate Studies Thesis Prize for her thesis "Healing the Wounds of War: Mental Health Projects in Guatemala" in 2005. Paula more recently received the Margaret Gillett Research Award from the Centre for Research and Teaching on Women at McGill University and in April 2007, she was a participant in the first international course Perspectivas Socioculturales en Salud Mental de Poblaciones Afectadas por Violencia Organizada y Desastres Naturales held in Guatemala City.
May - July 2007
Varuni Ganepola was awarded a three-month In-Service Research and Training Scholarship to attend the McGill Summer Course in Social and Cultural Psychiatry and to work under the tutorship of McGill Co-PIs in Montreal. Varuni earned her PhD from the University of Wales, UK, 2002. She is presently a Senior Lecturer of the Psychology Unit of the University of Colombo. Varuni has dedicated her academic carreer to mental health issues of displaced populations. She has published extensively on the devastation of the civil war on SriLanka's population. Her topics range from poverty and conflict to post-displacement recovery, re-integration of ex-combatants, families of asylum migration, identity and selfhood among women in refugee camps, etc.
Varuni Ganepola - Fellowship Report
May 2007
Judy Jeyakumar was awarded a one-month Summer Student Fellowship to attend the McGill Summer Course in Social and Cultural Psychiatry and to work under the tutorship of McGill Co-PIs in Montreal. Judy graduated with an MB BS degree in 2003 from the Teaching Hospital of Jaffna. Currently, he is following a Post Graduate Diploma in Psychology at the University of Colombo and is expected to finish in 2008. Judy has experience personally the war in Sri Lanka, lost family members and has been displaced several times. His interest to work for peace in Sri Lanka and in mental health issues, has him involved as a Medical Officer in Mental Health in different districts of Sri Lanka (Kilinochi, Mullitivu, and Batticaloa). Due to the acute shortage of Medical Officers in Mental Health in Kilinchchi and Mullitivu, WHO appointed him as a visiting Medical Officer for the two districts for one year.
Judy Jeyakumar - Fellowship Report
April 2007
Chantal Robillard was awarded a GHRI Teasdale-Corti Team Grant for a 10-day field visit to Guatemala, where she pursued a number of research, training, and networking objectives. Among other activities, Chantal offered a seminar on gendered ethnography and the integration of gender in mental health research to Guatemalan students and professionals. Chantal recently graduated from Université de Montréal in Anthropology. Her postdoctoral work at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute (McGill University) focuses on a cross-cultural study of stigma and social discrimination. She is particularly interested in the experience of persons with severe mental illness and on gender-based analysis of mental health outcomes in Latin American countries confronted with political violence. Other research interests concern the issue of resistance to globalization and stigmatization of women in prostitution and trafficking. She has been lecturing courses on culture and sexuality at the Department of Sexology at l’Université du Québec à Montréal since 2004.