MA International Disaster Psychology: Trauma and Global Mental Health

Who We Are

• Laura Ramzy, Ph.D.

   

  

  Assistant Professor

  Dr. Laura Ramzy joins the MA program in International Disaster Psychology: Trauma & Global Mental Health from the Lowry Family Health Center, a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) within the Denver Health and Hospital Authority healthcare system.  She is a Clinical Psychologist with broad interests in integrated care, refugee and immigrant health, multicultural sensitivity, and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) issues within primary care.  In addition to being appointed the Director of Field Placements for the IDP program, she will teach, supervise, and provide support to our Trauma Disaster Recovery Clinic.  She also plans to retain her appointment with Denver Health and continue with projects focused on DEI issues experienced by frontline healthcare workers.  

  Her graduate training is in Counseling Psychology, including a MA degree obtained from the University of Denver in 2005 and a Ph.D. degree obtained from the University of Oregon in 2012.  She is a regular presenter at the North American Refugee Healthcare Conference (NARHC).  Laura identifies as Egyptian American and was raised by immigrant parents in Cleveland, Ohio, and has been involved in the local refugee and immigrant community as a volunteer, clinician, researcher, and advocate for the past 17 years.  Her current areas of interest include traveling and exploring new places with her partner and two young kids and adventuring in the Rocky Mountains.

   

• Gwen Mitchell, PsyD
  

  Associate Professor | Co-Director

  Gwen Mitchell is a Co-Director and Associate Professor in the International Disaster Psychology Master's Program at The Graduate School of Professional Psychology, University of Denver.  She is a clinical psychologist with extensive experience working in the global mental health and humanitarian aid spaces. She has a doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Denver and has been conducting psychological evaluations and providing treatment, both domestically and in the international context, since 1999.   She has provided expert testimony in both immigration and criminal courts in the areas of asylum, torture, unusual hardship, PTSD, complex trauma, child abuse and fight-vs-flight.  Her international work experience includes work with Doctors Without Borders, The Center for Victims of Torture, Open Society Foundation, and SalusWorld.  In these training environments, she has trained extensively using participant centered and experiential education methodology on topics such as: trauma counseling, basic mental health, the psychology of aging, working with ex-combatants, child development and child-centered interventions, gender based violence and victim support services, group facilitation and counseling interventions for People Living with HIV/AIDS and LGBTQIA+ communities. She has also played a part in the development of a mental health policy for the country of Liberia and consulted with a number of NGOs as an expert in mental health and trauma.  Dr. Mitchell has presented at conferences domestically and internationally and co-authored various publications in the areas of: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in refugees and IDPs, Post Traumatic Growth (PTG), counseling applications with people of African ancestry, the impact of war on civilians, therapeutic photography, re-entry trauma, group counseling with vulnerable groups in Myanmar and the experience of working as a psychologist internationally.

• Tiamo Katsonga-Phiri, PhD
  

  Clinical Professor | Trauma Disaster Recovery Clinic Director 

  Tiamo Katsonga-Phiri, Ph.D., is a Project Lead and Clinical Faculty in the MA program in International Disaster Psychology: Trauma & Global Mental Health.  She completed her doctoral internship and post-doctorate fellowship at the Aurora Mental Health Center's Colorado Refugee Wellness Center. She is a Clinical Psychologist with broad interests in child psychology, refugee mental health, and trauma-informed practices. In addition to being appointed the Director of the Trauma Disaster Recovery Clinic, she will continue to run our Survivors of Torture (SoT) program, a collaboration in partnership with the International Rescue Committee and Denver Health's Human Rights Clinic. Her research has appeared in leading journals, including the Journal of Ethnographic and Qualitative Research, Archives of Women's Mental Health, Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, and Prevention Science, among others. Professor Katsonga-Phiri earned her Ph.D. in Clinical-Child Psychology from DePaul University in Chicago Illinois.

   

• Judy Fox, PhD
  

  Professor

  Dr. Fox is a Professor in the Graduate School of Professional Psychology and the former director of our Master’s Program in International Disaster Psychology: Trauma and Global Mental Health Program. Serving in the director position for 15 years she developed the foundation of the program and lead a faculty team who deepened its academic and clinical training and global learning opportunities. She founded and was the first director of the program’s Trauma and Disaster Recovery Clinic, a community mental health clinic serving transnational populations in Denver who have been impacted by disaster and trauma. Additionally, Dr. Fox supervised and helped to develop the Colorado Resilience Collaborative, an initiative that focuses on the prevention and detection of identity-based violence. Throughout her career she has taught both doctoral and masters-level courses and seminars in development across the lifespan through a cross-cultural lens, clinical interviewing, trauma treatment, psychopathology and integrated approaches to child and adolescent diagnosis and treatment. She supervises students at the masters and doctoral levels and her clinical interests include the impact of trauma and disaster on children, adolescents, and their families. Her scholarly interests are in attachment and systems theories that include a socio-cultural lens as applied to a variety of populations and settings, mental health stigma and psychotherapy, family functioning, trauma, caregivers of those affected by severe mental illness, and graduate level training and supervision.

  Dr. Fox has a private practice in the Denver area serving clients and their families and has worked in mental health care settings and in Veteran’s Administration and medical training center hospitals providing direct service, training to psychology interns and psychiatric residents, and leading psychosocial teams providing comprehensive care to clients receiving outpatient and inpatient care.

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• Maria Vukovich, PhD
  

  Research Faculty & Acting Director of the Colorado Resilience Collaborative

  Dr. Vukovich is an expert evaluator with a diverse portfolio of research projects.  She is the Co-PI on a number of our grant-funded research projects, including our Survivors of Torture Program (SoT) and the Colorado Resilience collaborative which is an interdisciplinary initiative that supports those impacted by targeted violence due to radicalization and discrimination, focusing on race/ethnicity, nationality, faith, and ideology. This program utilizes a trauma-informed, culturally alert, and inclusive approach and integrates a public health model to the prevention of identity-based violence. This work promotes understanding, healing and help for individuals impacted by targeted violence, as well as for those recruited into groups that advocate violence as a solution. 

  Dr. Vukovich's primary roles include providing leadership and administration for multiple projects focused on direct mental health services for newcomers and torture survivors, safety net access for New Americans, and targeted violence prevention programming Dr Vukovich supervises staff and students, and has successfully led grant applications that have resulted in federal awards and sub-contracts for the University of Denver. She completed her Ph.D. in Research Methods & Statistics (with Concentrations in Global Health and Human Rights) from DU in 2016. Previously, Dr. Vukovich implemented projects in global humanitarian settings in East Africa, Middle East and North Africa, and Latin America, and in U.S. based newcomer communities in Minneapolis/St Paul, Atlanta, and Denver. Her research experiences range from leading a multi-site, longitudinal Randomized Control Trial to cross-cultural measurement validation to community participatory engaged mixed method studies.

   

• Max Murray, MA
  

  LPC-C & Project Coordinator of the Colorado Resilience Collaborative

  Max works closely with IDP-GMH students who join the CRC team, and coordinates the program’s outreach efforts with community partners and stakeholders and the development of the program’s training materials. 

  Information about the Colorado Resilience COllaboration can be found here: https://psychology.du.edu/counseling-consultation/colorado-resilience-collaborative

  As a graduate of the IDP program (2018) and with a background in child and adolescent mental health, the majority of Max’s experience has been as a psychotherapist co-located in various Denver Public Schools with both elementary and high school aged students, many of whom were new Americans.  Max continues clinical practice part-time through Maria Droste Counseling Center, and his interests aside from those referenced above include Spanish language psychotherapy and research on culturally responsive, intercultural, and trauma informed training in psychotherapy. 

   

• Hope Danecki, MA
  

  Internship & Practicum Coordinator

  Hope Danecki is our Practicum and Internship Coordinator for the MAIDP program. Her role focuses on the logistics of connecting field placements and internship opportunities with our students. She also helps with the Student Services side of ensuring our MAIDP students meet important benchmarks throughout the program and beyond.
  
  Hope earned a Bachelor of Arts in History from the University of Northern Colorado, and a Master of Arts from Denver Seminary, focusing on cross-cultural engagement. She came to the University of Denver after working in various refugee and immigrant support roles since 2014. Hope has extensive experience supporting these populations in fields of cultural integration, education, employment, and resettlement, as well as the training and development of others to engage in similar spheres. Getting to support communities and care teams through this role is exciting and life-giving for her.

• VIDEO: 2019 International Internship Presentations