Director

Turhan Canli, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry, Stony Brook University. Turhan Canli is an internationally renowned expert in psychology, neuroscience and genetics. His TEDxStony Brook talk on his theory of theory of depression as an infectious disease has been viewed 140,000 times on YouTube. He was the first to conduct an MRI brain imaging study of personality, and the first to conduct a brain imaging gene-environment study of the serotonin transporter gene polymorphism. Recent work in his laboratory focused on gene expression in the human brain as a function of loneliness, anxiety, and Purpose in Life, as well as gene-environment interactions at the molecular and epigenetic level that regulate gene expression across the human genome. This general approach is applied to studies of individual differences in social stress reactivity, traits, emotional behavior and social cognition. Future work will focus on predictors of mental health after war trauma in U.S. veterans, refugees, and former child soldiers, and on social cognition related to political violence.

Advisory Board

Jonathan Moreno, Ph.D., David & Lyn Silfen University Professor, Professor of Medical Ethics & Health Policy and of History & Sociology of Science, Penn Integrates Knowledge (PIK) Professor, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. Jonathan D. Moreno, in addition to his academic credentials, is Chair of the UNESCO International Bioethics Committee Working Group on Bioethics and the Refugee Crisis. He frequently contributes to such publications as The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Huffington Post, Psychology Today, and Nature and often appears on broadcast and online media. In 2008-09 he served as a member of President Barack Obama’s transition team.  His work has been cited by Al Gore and was used in the development of the screenplay for “The Bourne Legacy.”  His online neuroethics course drew more than 36,000 registrants in fall 2013.  The American Journal of Bioethics has called him “the most interesting bioethicist of our time.” Moreno is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and is the U.S. member of the UNESCO International Bioethics Committee.  A Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C., Moreno has served as an adviser to many governmental and non-governmental organizations, including three presidential commissions, the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  He holds the Visiting Professorship in History at the University of Kent in Canterbury, England.

 

Sherman Teichman, 

Sherman Teichman is a Senior Fellow, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard Kennedy School, as well as Non-Resident Research Associate in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the Centre for International Studies at Oxford University, a Senior Fellow at The Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, and a Senior Fellow at the Liechtenstein Institute for Strategic Development. He is a strategic adviser for the Human Rights Foundation and serves on the Advisory Boards of the Council of European Studies, The Mind/Brain Center on War and Humanity, Beyond Conflict, Combatants for Peace, RefugePoint, HackerNest, Music for Life International, and the educational foundation of VII Photo Agency. 

Sherman is the Founding Director Emeritus (1985-2016) of the Institute for Global Leadership (IGL) at Tufts University in Massachusetts, lauded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York as "the proven breeding ground for future generations of international security and international relations leaders." Tufts Global Leadership

Prior to becoming a lecturer in the Department of Political Science at Tufts, Teichman was a Fellow and lecturer at Harvard’s Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School of Government, a faculty member at Emerson College and Boston University. Sherman Teichman served as foreign policy analyst for WBUR (a National Public Radio affiliate), and a social science editor of the Boston Review. A former adviser to governments on counter-terrorism and long-range strategic planning, he was also active with Amnesty International in the former Soviet Union and Central America. A saberist, he has coached fencing at Boston University, Harvard, Tufts, and the University of Chicago.

 

Partners

Partners are institutions that support the activities of the Mind/Brain Center on War and Humanity through collaborative projects, access to facilities, programs and activities, and participating faculty members. We gratefully acknowledge these partners:

The Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science

Canadian International Medical Reflief Organization (CIMRO)

Columbia University Council for European Studies

The International Center for Mental Health and Human Rights

Stony Brook School of Journalism

Stony Brook Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care and Bioethics

 

Fellows

Fellows serve in many capacities: as collaborators, clinical practitioners, field workers, and lecturers. The Center gratefully acknowledges the contributions of these fellows:

Khaled Almilaji, M.D. Born in Aleppo, Syria in 1981,  Dr. Khaled Almilaji graduated from Aleppo University’s school of Medicine 2006 and practiced two years as resident in a program of ENT diseases and surgery. In 2011, he joined the humanitarian operations in Syria by supporting the field hospitals, then as health coordinator for “The Saudi National Campaign” that is supporting Syrians in Syria and Turkey. Early in 2013, he established and headed the health department of the humanitarian unit ‘ACU’ of the Syrian Opposition Coalition and subsequently launched the EWARN ‘Early Warning Alert & Response Network’ to detect and monitor outbreaks in many governorates in Syria where the health systems have totally collapsed. Later in 2013 he was assigned as an external coordinator of the CBRN task force to strengthen the medical response to chemical attacks. In 2014 he was assigned as the administrative director of the Polio Vaccination campaigns in Northern Syria, supported mainly by UNICEF, WHO, USAID and Gates Foundation. In addition to heading up the Polio Vaccination campaign, Dr. Almilaji launched the Protect Initiative to establish secure health facilities in Syria. In 2015, he co-founded the Syrian-Canadian NGO, Canadian International Medical Relief Organizations (CIMRO) and launched a Needs and Population Monitoring (NPM) Program in 13 governorates in Syria, supported by the IOM & UNOCHA, to assess the humanitarian multisectoral needs over more than 90% of Syria, in addition to monitoring the IDPs movement inside Syria. In 2016 Dr. Almilaji launched a Continuous Medical Education (CME)  program to train medical staff in Syria and build their capacities, supported by WHO, UNFPA and French government.  In mid of 2016 Khaled launched the Health Information System 'HIS' initiative which will connect all field hospitals together in the opposition areas that will allow UN agencies , donors and different NGOs to respond on the spot to the urgent health needs because we will receive daily update about the different health indicators from these facilities. Currently, Dr. Almilaji is enrolled in Brown University's Masters of Public Health program - Rhode Island.

 

 

Mark J. Cameron, M.B., is an internationally certified Flight Paramedic and Associate Director of the ALS Educator Program at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center which is fully affiliated with the University of Toronto, Faculty of Medicine. Mark is a founding member and Vice President of CIMRO (Canadian International Medical Relief Organization). CIMRO has been involved with many medical missions inside Syria, helping with direct front line combat medicine, and training of doctors, nurses and paramedics.  CIMRO has also helped with providing clothing for children, supporting hospitals, educational programs, and with vaccination and chemical weapon response training. CIMRO has also been involved internationally on missions inside China, Cambodia, and Guyana. Mark is the recipient of the Medal of Bravery, for direct line of duty actions, which was awarded to him by Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II. Mark was nominated for the prestigious “Premiers Award” (Health Sciences division – Ontario, Canada) for his contributions to the practice of Paramedicine and his long history of international humanitarian disaster response work. Mark is a graduate of Humber College Toronto, and Charles Sturt University Australia. Mark has worked as a Lecturer at numerous Colleges and Universities over his 29 year medical career. Currently, Mark is enrolled in the Harvard Global Mental Health: Trauma and Recovery Certificate Program. 

 

 

 Etoku Isaac is currently a life skills officer working with Danish Refugee Council, a Humanitarian Organization responding to protection needs of South Sudanese refugees settled in different refugee camps in Adjumani District in Northern Uganda. He is also Contemplative Based Trauma Resilience Trainer and program coordinator with International Centre for Mental Health and Human Rights based in Uganda. Prior to this, he worked with Lutheran World Federation as a psychosocial officer implementing Mental Health and Psychosocial Support interventions for refugees in the same location in Uganda. He is a faculty member of the International Centre for Mental Health and Human Rights delivering portable calm trainings and Contemplative Based Trauma Resilience for children, women and men affected by trauma as a result of conflicts and displacement. His previous professional experiences include working as Community Based Psychosocial Worker for Trans Cultural Psychosocial Organization responding to the Mental Health and Psychosocial needs of Internally Displaced Persons in Northern Uganda from 2009-2013. He published a research dissertation on PTSD, Depression and coping among persons formerly affected by the insurgency of the Lord’s Resistance Army, graduating with a second Class Upper with Honours Degree in Community Psychology of Makerere University in 2015. 

 

Laura Lindenfeld Sher, Ph.D., Professor and Director, The Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA. Dr. Laura Lindenfeld is director of the Alda Center and professor in the School of Journalism at Stony Brook University. She holds a Ph.D. in cultural studies from the University of California, Davis. As a communication researcher, her work draws inspiration from the idea that we can make better, more informed decisions about how we shape our collective future. She is passionate about supporting scientists to communicate their work in more direct and engaging ways. Her work focuses on how we can advance meaningful, productive interactions with communities, stakeholders and decision-makers by strengthening linkages between knowledge and action.

 

Stephen Post, Ph.D., Professor and Director, Center for Bioethics and Compassionate Care, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA. Stephen G. Post is Professor of Family, Population and Preventive Medicine & Founding Director of the Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care, and Bioethics. Post is an Elected Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine, and of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia for “distinguished contributions to medicine”. He is an elected Fellow of the Hastings Center “for distinguished contribution to ethics and the life sciences” and of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown University.  He has received the United States Congress Certificate of Special Recognition “In Recognition of Outstanding Achievement”; and the Pioneer Medal for Outstanding Leadership in Health Care (shared with Dr. Edmund D. Pellegrino, MD) from HealthCare Chaplaincy New York. The Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care and Bioethics was selected as one of five areas of strength of the Stony Brook University School of Medicine by the LCME visiting committee (2011).

 

Jessica L. Schleider, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Stony Brook University, where she is a core faculty member in the Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program. Dr. Schleider completed her PhD in Clinical Psychology at Harvard University, along with a Doctoral Internship in Clinical and Community Psychology at Yale School of Medicine. She is also an Academic Consultant for the Education Global Practice at The World Bank, where she collaborates with economists and government officials in Central America to develop school-based interventions for students’ emotional health.

At Stony Brook, Dr. Schleider directs the Lab for Scalable Mental Health (www.schleiderlab.org), where she and her team develop and evaluate brief, accessible interventions for youth depression and anxiety. Dr. Schleider has published >30 scientific articles and book chapters and delivered dozens of professional talks for scientists, families, and providers across the country. She has developed or co-developed web-based, virtual reality, and school-based intervention protocols for youth, which have been evaluated in the U.S. and abroad (e.g., Kenya and the United Kingdom), and her research has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the American Psychological Foundation, and the Harvard Center for the Developing Child. Drawing on her research to date, she is currently authoring a therapeutic self-help workbook for adolescents, to be published by New Harbinger Publications in 2020.

 

Howard Schneider, Ph.D., Dean of the School of Journalism, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA. Howard Schneider is the Founding Dean of the School of Journalism. He spearheaded the team that developed the proposal for SUNY’s first, and still only, journalism school in 2006. For more than 35 years, Schneider was a reporter and editor at Newsday. For more than 18 of those years, he was managing editor and then editor. Under his tenure, the newspaper won eight Pulitzer Prizes. Newsday was also among the first newspapers in the country to create news websites. At Stony Brook, Schneider helped develop the nation’s first course in News Literacy, which is designed to teach students across all disciplines how to become more discerning news consumers. A version of the course has subsequently spread to universities across the country and overseas. He is Executive Director of the school’s Center for News Literacy. He also collaborated with the actor, writer and science advocate Alan Alda to launch what is now the school’s Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science. The Center trains current and future scientists to communicate more effectively with the public. Schneider began his teaching career at Stony Brook as an adjunct professor from 1980-1983. Previously, he had been an adjunct professor of journalism at Queens College in 1979. Schneider was the recipient in 2012 of the DeWitt Reddick Award for Public Communications and Journalism Education granted by the University of Texas. In 2003, he was the recipient of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism Alumnus Award (M.S. ’67). He has been a member of the Pulitzer Prize judging panel three times. He earned his B.A. at Syracuse University in Journalism and Psychology (’66).

 

Nicole Shea, Ph.D., Director, Council for European Studies, School of Arts & Sciences, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA. Nicole Shea is the Director of CES and the Executive Editor of EuropeNow, a global publication platform for a broad, multi-disciplinary educated audience. Its online format and accessibility allow data to reach a current but growing readership of 50,000 + worldwide every month, bridging a gap between traditional academic publications and blogs by addressing timely issues via thoughtful scholarly commentary. The contributors of EuropeNow are established and emerging academics, authors, and journalists from a wide range of disciplines and countries, while the editorial staff and committee similarly consists of both experienced and emerging editors. CES also hosts the renowned annual International Conference of Europeanists and supports 10 Research Networks, including those addressing Immigration, Social Movements, Radicalism and Violence, and the Transatlantic Science and Public Health Networks. Before joining CES, Shea served as the Executive Director of the Eisenhower Leadership Center at West Point where she was instrumental in shaping the Center’s innovative interdisciplinary programs and its successful global operation. Prior to that, she spearheaded cultural affairs programs and integrative curricular development as director, art curator, and faculty for Mount Saint Mary College and SUNY Orange.