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Global Mental Health Core Team

Staff

Circular headshot of Leah Nguyen, smiling, Program Manager UW Consortium for Global Mental HealthLeah Nguyen, MSW, BFA

Program Manager, UW Consortium for Global Mental Health

Leah (they/she) joined the UW Consortium for Global Mental Health as program manager in 2023. Nguyen has their Master in Social Work from Washington University in St Louis—with a focus on environmental social work and children, youth, and families and her Bachelor of Fine Art from University of Washington. They have worked in public health policy research at a Prevention Research Center, created a wholistic university wellness program, and worked in youth development programming—most recently advocating for state policy changes in the foster care and youth homelessness systems alongside young people with lived experience at The Mockingbird Society. Leah is also an artist-healer and plant lover that grew up on an Alaskan fishing boat and a specialty plant nursery on Whidbey Island.

Department Chairs

Circular Headshot of Jurgen Unutzer, smiling, Professor and Chair Psychiatry and Behavioral SciencesJürgen Unützer, MD, MPH, MA

Professor and Chair, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences; Adjunct Professor, Global Health; Director, Garvey Institute for Brain Health Solutions and Founder of the AIMS Center

Dr. Unützer is an internationally recognized psychiatrist and health services researcher. His work focuses on innovative models that integrate mental health and general medical services and on translating research on evidence-based behavioral health interventions into effective clinical and public health practice. He works with national and international organizations dedicated to improving behavioral health care for diverse populations, has served as Senior Scientific Advisor to the World Health Organization and as an advisor to the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health.

 

 

Heidi van Rooyen, PhDHeidi van Rooyen, PhD, Chair of Department of Global Health, smiling, wearing magenta and black in front of a reflective glass wall.

William H. Foege Endowed Chair and Professor, Department of Global Health

Dr Heidi van Rooyen is the new Chair of the Department of Global Health at the University of Washington. She is the first person from the Global South to take on this role of fostering equitable partnerships around the globe through research, education and training. Her 30-year professional career spans government, higher education, and the science council environments. Heidi is an experienced executive leader, social scientist, clinical psychologist and an internationally recognized and accomplished scholar. She has run successful interventions, implementation science projects and community-based studies addressing the health of women and children, HIV, COVID and sexual and reproductive health. Her research is framed by a desire to understand and address how inequities of gender, race, sexual orientation, and place, singularly and together, impact health outcomes. Her work is interdisciplinary, infusing public health with creative methodologies such as poetic inquiry and storytelling which results in science that gives voice, is action-oriented, empowering, impactful and transformative.