Bridging Gaps in Mental Health Care: A Multi-country Research Initiative

Ahmad Bawaneh

Country director of International Mercy Corps and mental health professional. He serves as co-chair of the MHPSS Working Group Jordan, that includes organizations such as WHO, UNICEF, the Center for victim of Torture, MSF, Institution for Family Health, Jordan River Foundation and others.

Clémence Pougué Biyong

Research Analyst at the Africa Gender Innovation Lab (World Bank Group). She has expertise in mental health, preventive behavior, gender-based violence, and financial inclusion. She has led evaluations of MHPSS services in Côte d’Ivoire and contributed to the AGIL report Pathways to Prosperity for Adolescent Girls. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.

Roberta Danieliūtė

Research Assistant at the New York University Abu Dhabi Department of Social Sciences. Her research interests lie at the intersection of international relations and comparative politics. She currently employs quantitative methods and survey research to support projects on environmental governance, public health, and electoral processes in Sub-Saharan Africa. She holds a BA in Political Science from NYU Abu Dhabi and a MSc in International Relations at LSE.

Clara Delavallade

Senior Economist, Africa Gender Innovation Lab (World Bank Group). She leads research on social protection, socio-emotional skills, and climate change. With over 20 years of experience in development and behavioral economics, she has conducted policy-oriented studies on human capital, mental health, and agricultural risk. Her research has been published in top journals. Previously, she was Executive Director at J-PAL South Asia, Associate Professor at the University of Cape Town, and Research Fellow at IFPRI. She holds a Ph.D. from the Paris School of Economics.

Lelys Dinarte-Diaz

Economist, Development Research Group (World Bank Group). Her current research lies at the intersection of education, mental health, and social-emotional skills in settings affected by conflict and violence. She leads research projects in various regions, including Latin America, Eastern Europe, South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa. She's also part of of the research initiative on AI and digital development. She holds a Ph.D. and a master’s degree in economics from the Catholic University of Chile.

Quy-Toan (Toan) Do

Lead Economist, Development Research Group (World Bank Group). Toan has co-directed the 2023 World Development Report “Migrants, Refugees, and Societies”. His current research is at the intersection of conflict fragility, human development (including mental health), and technology. He is part of the World Bank’s research initiative on AI and Digital Development. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from MIT.

Marelize Gorgens

Senior health specialist. Marelize works at the intersect of digital technology, AI, and human development. Her research interests focus on the value and regulatory dimensions of digital and data technologies for human development, and on implementation science research aspects of digital adoption. Prior to joining the Bank, Marelize worked for leading private sector and non-governmental organizations on large scale health and education sector digital transformations in Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe.

Adiam Hagos Hailemicheal

Economist, Africa Region Gender Innovation Lab (World Bank Group). Adiam has 15 years of experience in development research on women’s economic empowerment and childhood development in Sub-Saharan Africa. She leads projects on entrepreneurship, wage employment, childcare, and mental health, and also heads the Gender Innovation Policy Initiative for Ethiopia. Previously, she worked with the Policy Research Institute and the Association of Ethiopian Microfinance Institutions. She holds master’s degrees in economics and development studies.

Maddalena Honorati

Senior Economist, Social Protection and Labor, Eastern Europe and Central Asia (ECA), World Bank Group. She has extensive experience leading policy advice, operational engagements and research studies on social assistance, social services and employment programs for poor and vulnerable people in ECA and Africa. She authored global reports and research papers on jobs, skills, entrepreneurship and poverty targeting. She holds a PhD in Economics from Bocconi University and a M.Sc. from Pompeu Fabra University.

Kristen Kao

Associate Professor with the Department of Political Science at the University of Gothenburg. She is an expert on Middle East politics, large-N survey methods, and experimental design informed by fieldwork and in-depth interviewing techniques.

Rosco Kasujja

Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology at Makerere University (Uganda) and an internationally certified trainer in Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Groups (IPT-G). He has provided training and clinical supervision for humanitarian workers and NGOs across Africa, with research focusing on cultural adaptation of interventions and competencies for non-specialist providers.

Erwin Knippenberg

Senior Economist, Poverty & Equity practice (World Bank Group). He focuses on social protection, subsidies and quantifying the impact of climate change on the poor through the use of big data and machine learning. Erwin has a PhD in Applied Economics from Cornell University, where he wrote his dissertation on resilience and food security in the context of climate change. Prior to Cornell Erwin was an Overseas Development Institute Fellow at the Liberian Ministry of Finance. Erwin has a MSC in Economics for Development from Oxford (’12) and a joint BS/MA from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service (’11).

Ron Kessler

McNeil Family Professor of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School. His research focuses on the social determinants of mental health from an epidemiological perspective. He has authored over 1,000 publications, received major awards from the National Institute of Mental Health, and has long been among the most cited researchers in psychiatry. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Kessler is the principal investigator of the U.S. National Comorbidity Survey and several replications. He also leads the World Mental Health Survey Initiative, a series of comparative community epidemiological surveys examining the prevalence and correlates of mental disorders and their treatment across more than 30 countries worldwide. He also directs the Harvard site for Army STARRS-LS and the AURORA Study, and contributes to the Precision Treatment of Mental Disorders Initiative. Kessler earned his PhD in sociology from New York University and joined Harvard in 1994 after serving on the faculty at the University of Michigan.

Renata Korzeniewska

is a public administration professional with the experience in managing EU–funded programs, regional policy implementation in Poland and international advisory projects. She has contributed to analytical work within Subnational Business Ready in the European Union: Poland.

Elie Lowakondjo Lukangaka

is a Congolese clinical psychologist and university lecturer with extensive experience in mental health care, psychosocial support, and humanitarian contexts across Central Africa. He serves as the Director General of the SOSAME Psychiatric and Mental Health Center in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo. Dr. Elie’s career spans over 15 years as a clinician, trainer, and academic, with expertise in trauma, staff care, and community-based mental health approaches.

Andres Moya

Associate Professor of Economics, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia. Andres has a Ph.D. in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of California, Davis. He directs Semillas de Apego and serves as a Commissioner for the 2024-2025 Lancet Commission on Health, Conflict, and Forced Displacement. His research examines the impacts of conflict and forced displacement on poverty and mental health, designing interventions like the Semillas de Apego program. He holds a PhD in Economics from UCS Davis.

Anastasiya Noha-Asanov

PhD Candidate at the University of Kassel, Germany. Her research is centered around impact evaluations of digital tools for education and mental health, e.g., the "Self-Help Online" project for Ukrainian refugees in Europe. She co-authored publications in PNAS and Social Science & Medicine.

Rosaly Severijns

Postdoctoral Researcher in Environmental and Behavioral Economics at KU Leuven. She has expertise in designing and analyzing randomized controlled trials and social network interventions, with research spanning mental health, pro-social behavior, and environmental outcomes. She collaborates closely with NGOs to evaluate digital behavioral interventions. She holds a PhD from Hasselt University.

Marit Sijbrandij

Professor of Clinical Psychology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Director of the WHO Collaborating Center at VU University. She has led multiple randomized trials of early psychological interventions to prevent depression, anxiety, and PTSD following trauma, and has extensive experience adapting and testing interventions such as Step-by-Step for refugee populations.

Noah Stein

Noah has fifteen years of experience in speech and audio applications of machine learning. He led technical development of Kintsugi’s voice biomarker models for mental health. His research in the field also spans keyword spotting for Amazon Alexa and audio source separation ("the cocktail party problem”). He holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT, concentrating in computational game theory.

Peter van der Windt

Associate Professor of Political Science at New York University Abu Dhabi. He specializes in conflict, governance, and research design, with extensive fieldwork in Sub-Saharan Africa, including the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone. His research is published in leading political science and economics journals, and he regularly consults for organizations such as the World Bank and UNHCR.

Peter Ventevogel

Psychiatrist at the University of Amsterdam. He has 24 years of experience in programming for mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) for populations affected by violence and displacement. Since 2013, Peter has been working with the Public Health Section of UNHCR as their Senior Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Specialist. He oversees and provides technical support to UNHCR operations worldwide, including through field support missions to over 35 countries. Peter has been involved in operational research on mental health among refugees and conflict-affected populations, participating in several research consortia. He holds a PhD in medical anthropology.

Théophile Kashinzi Wahiremubi

Psychologist with over 20 years of academic and professional experience in mental health, psychosocial support, and higher education. He currently serves as Dean of the Faculty of Psychological and Educational Sciences at the Université Officielle de Bukavu. Dr. Kashinzi has extensive experience in clinical supervision, trauma care, and training of mental health professionals, as well as in project evaluation and community-based psychosocial programs.