Meet Our Leadership.

Dr. Soraya Seedat is a Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Executive Head of the Department of Psychiatry at Stellenbosch University. She held the South African Research Chair in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder for 15 years (until the end of 2022) and currently directs the South African Medical Research Council Unit on the Genomics of Brain Disorders. She has more than 20 years of clinical, epidemiological and basic neuroscience research experience as a psychiatrist working in the field of traumatic stress, anxiety and neuroAIDS has published over 500 peer-reviewed journal manuscripts, co-edited four books and 30 book chapters. She has served two terms as the President of the College of Psychiatrists of South Africa and three terms as Secretary and is currently a member of the Board of Directors and an Honorary Registrar of the Colleges of Medicine of South Africa. Prof Seedat is an expert in the field of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and anxiety disorders, in adolescents and adults, and in the investigation of mechanisms of risk and resilience in adolescent and adult samples and has published widely in these areas. She has ongoing projects in PTSD, anxiety disorders, neuroAIDS and fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. She has also been involved in multiple research training, capacity building and leadership development activities in sub-Saharan Africa and internationally, supported by NIMH grants and other funding initiatives.

Dr. Smith is a Research Health Scientist in the National Center for PTSD Women’s Health Sciences Division at VA Boston Healthcare System and Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine. His federally funded research program is focused on the effects of traumatic stress and mental health sequelae—PTSD, depression, and salient comorbidities—on outcomes related to physical health, functioning, and quality of life. He examines these outcomes and associated risk and resilience factors in populations at heightened risk for trauma exposure, especially military veterans, and often examines psychosocial risk models in the context of gender differences as well as aging.

Dr. Rachel Hiller is an Associate Professor in Child Mental Health at University College London (UCL) and the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families, in the United Kingdom. Her research is in the field of complex child trauma, with a particular focus on children with experience of out-of-home care (e.g., foster care, residential group care). Her work here spans research into social and cognitive mechanisms driving mental health and wellbeing, through to the testing of scalable mental health interventions delivered in child welfare and mental health settings, and the implementation of current best-evidenced practice. Her work includes a transdiagnostic focus, as well as a more specific focus on PTSD and complex PTSD.

Andrea J. Phelps is the Deputy Director of Phoenix Australia, Australia’s national centre of excellence in posttraumatic mental health based at the University of Melbourne. There they combine clinical work, supervision and training with innovative research and consultation to government and industry on trauma related policy and strategy.  As the Deputy Director her responsibilities include strategic oversight of the Centre’s activities across research, service development and training; strategic planning and setting future directions; and leadership of flagship projects such as the NHMRC approved Australian Guidelines for the Treatment of PTSD which helped shape the process for the ISTSS PTSD Guidelines. She began her career as a clinician, holding senior clinical leadership positions in general mental health and specialised trauma treatment services. This background has shaped her approach to research and consultancy, ensuring that research is clinically relevant and consultancy advice is situated within an understanding of clinical complexity.  

Dr. Angela Nickerson is Professor in the School of Psychology at UNSW Sydney, Australia. She is Director of the Refugee Trauma and Recovery Program, a research program dedicated to informing policy and clinical practice for refugees around the world. Her research implements longitudinal, experimental and clinical methodologies to understand psychological and social factors that influence refugee mental health. She works with a variety of NGOs and clinical services to support the mental health of refugees in Australia and internationally. Dr. Nickerson is an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council Leadership Fellow, and a Fellow of the Royal Society for New South Wales. She has served on the Board of Directors of the ISTSS since 2018.

Dr. Bass is cuurently a Professor of Global Mental Health and the Vice Chair for Education in the Department of Mental Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. During her career in public mental health, her research nenters on the experiences of global populations affected by trauma and ways to improve access to effective mental health services in low-resource settings.

Dr. Bedard-Gilligan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington (UW) and a licensed clinical psychologist in the state of Washington (WA). She is co-director of the Trauma Recovery and Resilience Innovations (TRI) program and is associate director of the UW Center for Anxiety and Traumatic Stress (UWCATS). Dr. Bedard-Gilligan’s research predominantly focuses on recovery process following trauma exposure, with specific emphases on the co-occurrence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and substance use. She is currently a lead investigator on several clinical trials developing and testing brief interventions to promote trauma recovery and is involved in ongoing projects designed to train providers in trauma-focused behavioral treatment approaches. She also maintains an active clinical practice.

Dr. Iris M. Engelhard is a Professor of Clinical Psychology at Utrecht University and a licensed cognitive behavioral therapist. She is affiliated with Altrecht, where she connects science and clinical practice in trauma and anxiety treatment. Dr. Engelhard earned her PhD from Maastricht University and has held research positions at Harvard University and the VA Research Center. She has published over 200 works, received multiple prestigious grants, and serves on the European Journal of Psychotraumatology’s editorial board. A long-time ISTSS member, she has played key roles in conferences and delivered a keynote on intrusive memories at the 2023 ISTSS Annual Meeting.

Dr. Ghafoori is a Professor of Counseling Psychology at California State University Long Beach (CSULB) and Director of the CSULB Long Beach Trauma Recovery Center. Dr. Ghafoori has an active program of research focusing on dissemination of evidence-based trauma treatments for culturally diverse individuals and understanding disparities in mental health care for impoverished trauma-exposed individuals.

Dr. Hyun is a Professor at Department of Social Welfare in Daegu University in Korea. ‎She was the president of Korean Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (KSTSS) ‎during 2020-2021. She is also a president of Korean Academy of Mental Health Social ‎Work in 2023. She worked as a clinical social worker at US Army Hospital in Korea. ‎Her primary responsibility was to provide psychotherapy for soldiers with PTSD, and ‎victims of sexual assault, family violence, and child abuse. She is the head of the ‎counseling team of Gyeongbuk Fire Service Headquarters. Her research and clinical ‎interests focus on disaster mental health, vicarious trauma, trauma-informed care, ‎and evidence-based practice in trauma fields. She provided resiliency program for ‎mental health professionals and made voice on the mental health policies and ‎systems as a member of advisory committees at central and local governments in ‎Korea.‎

Dr. Masaya Ito is the Director of the Department of Research and Development at the National Center for Cognitive-Behavior Therapy and Research, Japan, and a Professor at the University of Tsukuba. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Tsukuba in 2007, specializing in clinical psychological research. Dr. Ito has led groundbreaking randomized controlled trials on emotional disorders and PTSD treatments in Japan and promotes evidence-based psychotherapy using advanced technologies.

A member of ISTSS since 2005, he has presented at conferences and aims to strengthen ties between ISTSS and the Japanese Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (JSTSS), where he serves as a board member. His goal is to promote trauma research and public awareness in Japan by fostering global collaboration.

Dr. Jana D. Javakhishvili is a Professor of Psychology and Director of the Institute of Addiction Studies at Ilia State University, Tbilisi, Georgia. Her research interests focus on exploring mental health problems of war- and political oppression-affected populations. She is heavily engaged in the projects of the Federation Global Initiative on Psychiatry focused at improving human rights-based mental health care in Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Sri Lanka, Ukraine and other war-affected countries. She is a Past President of ESTSS. Currently, she is on the editorial board of the European Journal of Psychotraumatology and a Trustee of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma Europe.

Dr. Rachel Liebman a clinical psychologist at Toronto General Hospital and Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto. Dr. Liebman specializes in the treatment of co-occurring trauma-related disorders and high-risk problem behaviours such as eating disorders, self-harm, and suicide. Her research on development and adaptation of treatments for high-risk trauma-related conditions has been awarded multiple federal and institutional grants and she has published widely on mechanisms and processes associated with these conditions. She served on the Task Force for the Ontario Structured Psychotherapy Program for Gender Based Violence and she provides workshops, trainings and consultation on the assessment and treatment of trauma-related conditions internationally.  

Dr. Sonya Norman earned her B.A. in Cultural Anthropology from Vassar College and her PhD in Counseling Psychology from Stanford University. She completed her pre-doctoral internship and postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California San Diego and VA San Diego. The focus of her fellowship was on the neurobiology of trauma among female survivors of intimate partner violence. In the course of doing assessments with our study participants and learning from them about their lives, she realized her passion was to study treatments to help people recover from the detrimental effects of trauma. She joined the faculty of the UCSD Department of Psychiatry shortly after. Studying treatment has been her research focus since then. In addition, early her career, she served as a VA psychologist, PTSD clinical team leader, and training director for a postdoctoral fellowship focused on evidence-based treatments at the San Diego VA. In 2012, while continuing her faculty appointment at UCSD, she transitioned from her VA roles to her position as the PTSD Consultation Program Director for the National Center for PTSD, where she lead a team of expert PTSD clinicians, administrators and researchers. In this capacity, she oversee over 2000 consultations per year related to treating veterans with PTSD and lead educational efforts on PTSD assessment and treatment for VA and community providers.

Dr. Nugent is an Associate Professor, Research Scholar, in the Departments of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Pediatrics, and Emergency Medicine at the Alpert Brown Medical School. She serves as Director of Psychological Services at the Hasbro Pediatric Refugee Clinic as well as Associate Director of the Institute for Stress, Trauma, and Resilience (STAR Institute) at the Alpert Brown Medical School. Her federally funded research program explores the interplay of biology and social context during times of stress, trauma, and transition in high risk and trauma-exposed populations, with the goal of translation to intervention.

Dr. Shalev is Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at Hadassah and the Hebrew University School of Medicine in Jerusalem, Israel. His research concerns the early detection, prevention, and treatment of traumatic stress disorders, exploring their underlying neurobiology and its translational potential and understanding the interpersonal, social, and humanistic dimensions of trauma survival.A long-time member of ISTSS, Dr. Shalev previously served on the Board in the 1980's.