Visiting Scientists

Nachiket Mor has a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania. His current work is principally focused on the design of national and regional health systems. He was a member of the Planning Commission’s High-Level Expert Group on Universal Health Care, the Primary Care Task Force of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the Health Commission for the State of Himachal Pradesh, and the Task Force on Global Health at the Academy of Medicine in Washington, D.C. He helped create a new model for comprehensive primary care, pioneered by SughaVazhvu Health care in remote rural parts of Tamil Nadu, and offers a seminar on Health Systems Design at the Chennai based Banyan Academy of Leadership in Mental Health.

Dr. Phyllis Solomon is a Professor in the School of Social Policy & Practice and Professor of Social Work in Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. She is internationally known for her research on clinical services and service system issues related to adults with severe mental illness and their families that includes research on psychiatric rehabilitation programs and intersection of mental health and the criminal justice system. Dr. Solomon has extensively lectured and consulted in Asia, i.e., China, Japan and Korea. In 2015 she delivered the Annual Sidney Ball Lecture at Oxford University. She has edited and co-authored 6 books including two on psychiatric rehabilitation and has over 182 peer-eviewed publications as well as more than 36 book chapters. Furthermore, she is the recipient of numerous awards including First Place Research Award from the Society for Social Work and Research, Distinguished Career Achievement Award from the Society of Social Work and Research, University Provost Award for Ph.D. Mentoring of Doctoral Students from the University of Pennsylvania and many more. Her research has been at the forefront of consumer rights and capabilities, having conducted one of the first and most influential studies on consumer provided mental health services in the 1990s.

Dr. Joske Bunders wrote her Ph.D. thesis on participatory approaches to the development of science-based innovations in agriculture at the VU, Amsterdam in 1994. She has been the director of the Athena Institute for research on innovation and communication in Health and Life Sciences (Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences, VU Amsterdam) since 1981. She was appointed Professor of Biology and Society at the Vrije University at Amsterdam in 2000. Dr. Bunders is the coordinator of Science & Society studies for the faculty of Health and Life Sciences. She sits on several government commissions and advisory boards, including the “Gender Advisory Board of the United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development” (UNCSTD) the Steering Committee on “Technology Assessment”. Dr. Bunders has published widely in the area of biotechnology and the role of users in shaping the innovation process. Her current projects include: “Inter- and Transdisciplinary Research on Ecological Genomics: a Multi-Stakeholder Approach “, “A Societal Research Agenda on Medical Biotechnology”

Dr. Barbara Regeer is an Associate Professor, Faculty of Science, Athena Institute. She has initiated and led research projects on emerging innovative strategies for sustainable development in the fields of mental health, youth protection, suicide prevention, nature, and agriculture, with a specific focus on the facilitation and evaluation of multi-stakeholder processes, knowledge co-creation, mutual learning, and scaling-up innovations. She has experience with co-designing international collaboration on disability inclusion in the Netherlands, India, and Ethiopia, and as project leader of the Dutch partnership of EU Health Programme project e-CAPACIT8. Read more about her work here: https://research.vu.nl/en/persons/bj-regeer

Dr. Wendy Gruber has directed the Center for Global Women's Health in the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. She was presented with The Order of the Bell in 2017 by Mountains of Hope, West Virginia’s statewide cancer coalition, for her work in public health in rural West Virginia, which has elevated rates of cervical cancer mortality. She partnered with local communities and brought in significant changes to break barriers in public health. Read more here: https://www.nursing.upenn.edu/live/news/1699-wendy-grube-retires-a-look-back-at-her-penn

Sanjeev Jain did his graduate studies at the University of Delhi (Maulana Azad Medical College) and postgraduate studies at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore. He was a Commonwealth Fellow at Cambridge University, UK, where in addition to learning research methods in genetics, he developed an interest in the history of psychiatry. He is a clinician and a teacher, who researches the genetic correlates of psychiatric and neurological disease and heads the molecular genetics laboratory at NIMHANS. He is also an adjunct faculty at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (part of Tata Institute of Fundamental Research), Bangalore. He has been involved in volunteer work with both governmental organizations and NGOs and was a member of the committee for drafting the Mental Health Policy document for India. He has been researching the history of mental health services in India, from the colonial period to contemporary times. This work has helped understand the interface between science and medicine, and social responses to mental illness in India.

Dr. Harsh Mander, social worker and writer, is the founding member of the National Campaign for the People's Right to Information. He is also the founder of the campaigns Aman Biradari, for secularism, peace and justice; Nyayagrah, for legal justice and reconciliation for the survivors of communal violence; and Dil Se, for street children and homeless people. He is the special commissioner to the Supreme Court of India in the Right to Food case, and director, Centre for Equity Studies. He has extensively written many books on Social of which the latest ones are Fatal Accidents of Birth, Looking Away: Inequality, Prejudice and Indifference in New India. He has also won many awards for peace work.

Dr. Deborah K. Padgett, a professor of social work, public health and psychiatry at New York University, is known for her expertise in qualitative and mixed methods including her texts Qualitative Methods in Social Work Research (3rd Sage, 2016) and Qualitative and Mixed Methods in Public Health (Sage,2012). Having a doctorate in medical anthropology and post-doctoral training in psychiatric epidemiology, Dr. Padgett is a leading researcher on homelessness and is the first author of “Housing First: Ending Homelessness, Transforming Systems and Changing Lives". Dr. Padgett was Principal Investigator on two NIMH-funded R01 grants, both qualitative studies of engagement and recovery among formerly homeless adults in supportive housing in New York City. Dr. Padgetts' recent research is on homeless pavement dwellers in Delhi, India. She served as (SSWR), culminating in the establishment of the SSWR "Deborah K. Padgett Early Career Award" in recognition of her contributions. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare (AASWSW).

Dr. Alok Sarin is a practicing psychiatrist at the Sitaram Bhartia Institute in New Delhi. A medical graduate and postgraduate in psychiatry from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, he has been in an active clinical practice for the last twenty-five years. He has been an active member of the Indian Psychiatric Society and has written and published widely. Apart from clinical practice, he has been active in areas of psychosocial rehabilitation and in involving the larger community in public discourses on Mental Health and disorder. He is the Vice President of The Richmond Fellowship Society, a voluntary organization working with chronic psychiatric illness, and is the conceptualizer of the acclaimed lecture series, 'The Canvas Askew'. He has also been awarded the prestigious senior fellowship by the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Teen Murti, House for research on the Mental Health aspects of communal conflict.

Prof. Andrew Willford is a Professor of Anthropology at Cornell University. Willford's work characteristically explores psychological and phenomenological aspects of selfhood, identity, and subjectivity within a matrix of power and statecraft. His previous research has focused upon Tamil displacement, revivalism, and identity politics in Malaysia and India. A recent book, Tamils and the Haunting of Justice: History and Recognition in Malaysia's Plantations (University of Hawaii Press/Singapore University Press, 2014) examines how Tamil plantation communities face the uncertainties of retrenchment and relocation in Malaysia. His latest book, The Future of Bangalore's Cosmopolitan Pasts: Civility and Difference in a Global City (University of Hawaii, 2018) examines the politics of language, religion, identity, and belonging in Bangalore, India, over a 20 year period. His current research focuses on mental health, psychiatry, neurology, and religious healing traditions in North America and India. In 2014-15, he was a Fulbright Senior Research Fellow at NIMHANS (the National Institute for Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences) in Bangalore, where he conducted research on urban psychiatry in Bangalore, as well as faith healing traditions within indigenous communities located in the Nilgiris Biosphere Reserve. Willford is a member of the core team of Cornell faculty teaching and researching within the Cornell-Keystone Nilgiris Field Learning Center in Tamil Nadu, India. Other recent books include: Cage of Freedom: Tamil Identity and the Ethnic Fetish in Malaysia (University of Michigan Press, 2006; Singapore University Press, 2007), Spirited Politics: Religion and Public Life in Contemporary Southeast Asia, Andrew Willford and Kenneth George, eds. (Southeast Asia Program Publications, Cornell University, 2005), and Clio/Anthropos: Exploring the Boundaries between History and Anthropology, Andrew Willford and Eric Tagliacozzo, eds. (Stanford University Press, 2009.)