Catherine Panter-Brick
Catherine Panter-Brick is the Bruce A. and Davi-Ellen Chabner Professor of Anthropology, Health, and Global Affairs at Yale University. A medical anthropologist trained in human biology and the social sciences, she holds appointments in the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, the Department of Anthropology, and the School of Public Health.
Professor Panter-Brick is an expert on risk and resilience, having spent three decades working with people affected by violence, poverty, and marginalization. Her work with Syrian refugee youth is an example of scientific research evaluating the extent to which interventions can alleviate stress, boost resilience, and improve lives in war-affected communities. She has integrated methods from ethnography, cross-cultural psychiatry, child development, and stress biology to learn about the impact of violence on youth mental health in Jordan, Afghanistan, and Nepal. She has also led interdisciplinary research projects in Ethiopia, the Gambia, Nepal, Niger, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tanzania, the UK, and just recently, the US-Mexico border. For her work in humanitarian areas, she received the Lucy Mair Medal, awarded by the Royal Anthropology Institute to honor excellence in the application of anthropology to the active recognition of human dignity.
On the issue of resilience and mental health, Panter-Brick has been a keynote speaker at the United Nations, contributed to international media broadcasts, and presented to iNGO dissemination events, the World Health Organization, the World Bank, and the United States Institute of Peace. She leads research initiatives to develop effective partnerships between scholars, practitioners, and policymakers. At Yale, she directs the Program on Conflict, Resilience, and Health, the Program on Stress and Family Resilience, and the multidisciplinary Program of Global Health Studies. She serves as Head of Morse College, one of Yale’s 14 residential colleges. She is also the Senior Editor (Medical Anthropology) of the interdisciplinary journal Social Science & Medicine and the President of the Human Biology Association.
Prior to coming to Yale, she was a Professor of Anthropology at Durham University and a Fellow at St Hugh’s College, Oxford University. She has also been appointed a Senior Research Fellow in the Crisis Prevention & Post-Conflict Unit of Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and a Research Associate of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS).
An example of recent work strengthening the evidence base for mental health and resilience interventions in humanitarian crises, funded by Elrha’s R2HC Program, is found here https://www.elrha.org/project/yale-psychosocial-call2/.
An example of presentations to the global networks of the Early Childhood Peace Consortium is found here: https://ecdpeace.org/video/biocultural-research-stress-resilience-prof-catherine-panter-brick-yale