Upcoming Events

Join us for a screening of Being Family, a captivating exploration of parenting, adversity, and the unwavering strength found within migrant and displaced communities along the Thailand–Myanmar border. Through the stories of two displaced families from Myanmar, the film offers a poignant look at the challenges families face while navigating displacement, and the strength, connection, and resilience they draw from one another. Developed as part of the Parenting on the Thailand–Myanmar Border study led by Dr. Amanda Sim, Being Family highlights the power of positive and playful parenting in reducing violence against children and promoting caregiver and child mental well-being. The film also offers a powerful example of how research, community partnership, and storytelling can come together to create meaningful and accessible conversations about family relationships, parenting, mental health, and…

What does a career in academic research look like after earning a master’s degree? Join the Duke Center for Global Mental Health Trainee Group for a career-focused conversation with Julie Mannarino, MHA, Associate Director at the University of Missouri–St. Louis Missouri Institute of Mental Health, and Britt DeVries, MBA, Lead Data Scientist at the University of Miami. Julie and Britt will share their experiences building careers in academic research and supporting research in global mental health and public health. Drawing from their own professional journeys, they will discuss how they have applied their master’s-level training in academic settings, navigated different roles and responsibilities, and developed their skills and expertise over time. The session will offer trainees an opportunity to learn more about career pathways in academic research, the range of…

Join the Duke Center for Global Mental Health Trainee Community for an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session with Mariia Savchyna, MD, PhD Student in Health Sciences. In this session, Mariia will share her journey from medical training in Kyiv, Ukraine, to pursuing a PhD in Health Sciences at Jagiellonian University Medical College in Poland. She will discuss her experiences conducting research on refugee health and the impacts of war, as well as navigating doctoral training and building a career in global mental health research. Mariia’s research explores how stress and trauma affect the health and well-being of refugees, with a particular focus on biological markers of stress and resilience. Her work includes studying biomarkers such as cortisol and telomere length among families affected by war. She also contributes to research…

Join the Duke Center for Child and Family Policy and the Duke Center for Global Mental Health for a research talk with Mariia Savchnya, who will share findings from the STRONG Study (Stress, Trauma, Resilience Of New Generations) examining stress, trauma, and resilience among Ukrainian refugee women in Poland. Mariia and her team followed 141 Ukrainian refugee women— mothers and grandmothers who arrived in Kraków after February 2022 to examine hair cortisol concentration as a biomarker of HPA-axis activity alongside self-reported perceived stress and psychological resilience. The study found that women who fled frontline regions had 18% higher hair cortisol levels than women from non-frontline regions, despite reporting similar levels of perceived stress. Notably, the difference in cortisol levels varied by resilience: the gap was largest among women with lower…