Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Global Center at the Child Mind Institute Awards Inaugural Research Fellowships to Trailblazing Researchers in Pakistan and Kenya

Groundbreaking Initiative Empowers Future Leaders to Bridge Youth Mental Health Gaps in Low-Resource Settings

New York, NY —  The Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Global Center for Child and Adolescent Mental Health at the Child Mind Institute named Dr. Syed Usman Hamdani and Dr. Christine Musyimi as the inaugural 2024 SNF Global Center Research Fellows. Their projects will lead research advancement and capacity building to address child and adolescent mental health gaps and needs in their home countries of Pakistan and Kenya.

The SNF Global Center Research Fellowships are an innovative funding and career development program. They include an award equivalent to approximately USD $550,000 over a 4- to 5-year period. The Fellowships target exceptionally creative, early-career scientists with records of conducting innovative projects with high impact in local communities in their region. These are projects that demonstrate potential to revolutionize the field of child and adolescent mental health in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Awardees will be provided a unique international platform for mentorship, training, career development, and networking alongside SNF Global Center Clinical and Communication Fellows participating in sister Fellowship programs.

“Designed to cultivate future leaders in child and adolescent mental health research within low- and middle-income countries, the SNF Global Center Research Fellowship supports early-career researchers with a proven track record of innovation, impact, and leadership potential. Fellows will receive funding for projects, along with mentorship, networking opportunities, and ongoing collaboration provided by the SNF Global Center,” said Peter Raucci, Program Director of Global Fellowships at the SNF Global Center for Child and Adolescent Mental Health at the Child Mind Institute.

Dr. Syed Usman Hamdani is Founding Director of Global Institute of Human Development at Shifa Tameer-e-Millat University in Islamabad, Pakistan. His research focuses on addressing inequities in evidence-based child and adolescent mental health (CAMH) services in low-resource settings. His project will utilize low-cost technology to scale up the training and supervision of non-specialist school counsellors in the delivery of evidence-based cognitive behavior therapy. The project will apply the World Health Organization’s Early Adolescent Skills for Emotions (EASE) intervention to improve outcomes for young people with mental illnesses. The non-inferiority, single-blind, individual randomized controlled trial (RCT) will be conducted in eight middle- and high schools.

“I am thrilled by this opportunity to make contributions towards a real-world impact in global CAMH,” said Dr. Hamdani. “The fellowship will allow me to network and learn with the global community of CAMH professionals, especially in low-resource settings, and to create opportunities for increased collaborations to study, implement, and scale up evidence-based, preventive, promotive, and treatment CAMH services in a sustainable manner.”

Dr. Christine Musyimi is an early-career researcher at the Africa Mental Health Research and Training Foundation in Nairobi, Kenya, where she currently works on the NIHR Global Health Research Group on Homelessness and Mental Health in Africa (HOPE) project. Her project will focus on reducing self-stigma and improving service engagement among adolescents experiencing homelessness in Kenya. Her project will explore lived experiences of homelessness, mental illness, and stigma within the Kenyan context and ways of adapting the Honest, Open, Proud (HOP) intervention for this vulnerable population.

“I have always been interested in understanding disparities in health and enhancing mental health in low-resource community settings,” said Dr. Musyimi. “This fellowship marks a significant milestone in advancing my career as an adolescent mental health researcher in Kenya.”

While only two Research Fellowships could be awarded, the SNF Global Center also named an honorable mention. Florencia Assaneo is affiliated with the Instituto de Neurobiología de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Her proposal focused on enhancing cognitive skills in children in Mexico through auditory-motor synchronization using a video game intervention. She will receive networking and mentorship support from the SNF Global Center.

About the SNF Global Center at the Child Mind Institute

The SNF Global Center brings together the Child Mind Institute’s expertise as a leading independent nonprofit in children’s mental health and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation’s (SNF) deep commitment to supporting collaborative projects to improve access to quality health care worldwide. The center is building partnerships to drive advances in under-researched areas of children’s and adolescents’ mental health and expand access to culturally appropriate trainings, resources, and treatment in low- and middle-income countries. This work is conducted by the Child Mind Institute with support from SNF through its Global Health Initiative (GHI).

About the Child Mind Institute

We are the leading independent nonprofit in children’s mental health providing gold-standard, evidence-based care, delivering educational resources to millions of families each year, training educators in underserved communities, and developing open science initiatives and tomorrow’s breakthrough treatments.

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