Our team

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Our team

Our team

Who are we?

At the MHPSS Collaborative, our team is the heart of our mission. We are a passionate group of professionals, each with unique expertise, all united by a shared commitment to improving mental health and psychosocial support globally.

Core team

Lead consultants

Advisory board

Core team

Marie Dahl

Director

Marie Dahl

Director

Marie is a dedicated humanitarian professional with over 15 years of experience in crisis response, child protection, and mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS). She is passionate about supporting communities in crisis and ensuring children, youth and families receive the care and protection they need.

Throughout her career, Marie has held key leadership roles at Save the Children Denmark and Save the Children International, leading efforts in emergency response, program development, capacity building, and advocacy across the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. She has also worked with NGOs in Zambia, Burkina Faso, Palestine, India and the Philippines, gaining hands-on experience in diverse humanitarian contexts.

Marie holds a Master’s in International Humanitarian Action (NOHA), with studies at Uppsala University, University College Dublin, and Columbia University, along with a Bachelor’s in Social Sciences from Sweden. She has also completed advanced training in leadership, migration, and child protection in emergencies.

With a deep commitment to mental health advocacy and building resilient communities, Marie strives to drive meaningful change in humanitarian policy and practice worldwide.

Email:[email protected]

Deepali Pavagadhi

MHPSS and Research Advisor

Deepali Pavagadhi

MHPSS and Research Advisor

Deepali brings MHPSS and research expertise from over a decade of professional experience across non-profit organizations, academia, and the private sector in India, Singapore, the UK, and Denmark. At the Collaborative, she oversees and supports the research portfolio, collaborating closely with national and local partners to design and implement mixed-methods evaluations and advance participatory approaches to MHPSS research. She also works with the communications and advocacy team at the Collaborative to support the dissemination of research and its impact on policy and practice.

Deepali holds an M.Sc. in Psychology and Neuroscience of Mental Health from King’s College London. Her interests include evidence and action on social and structural factors in mental health, critical scholarship in MHPSS and global mental health, and development of participatory and inclusive approaches for MHPSS research.

Email:[email protected]

Elvire Rikkert

Intern

Elvire Rikkert

Intern

Elvire is a master’s student in Climate Change Science at the University of Copenhagen, with a keen interest in the diverse aspects of climate change and its impacts on mental health and wellbeing. As an intern at the Collaborative, she dedicates two days a week to supporting the development and implementation of Climate and MHPSS workshops aimed at creating a practice framework that addresses the mental health impacts of the climate crisis and identifies potential interventions to foster psychosocial resilience.

In her role, Elvire collaborates closely with researchers and advisors from partner organizations, including Save the Children Denmark, the MHPSS International Movement Hub, the Danish Red Cross, and the Nordic Youth Network for Mental Health and Psychosocial Support. Her responsibilities include supporting the planning and coordination of the Climate and MHPSS workshops in English, French, and Spanish, managing and analyzing data, selecting tools for data visualization, and assisting in the creation of visual outputs.

Email:[email protected]

Karlo Dukic

Programmes Officer

Karlo Dukic

Programmes Officer

Karlo brings expertise in project management and monitoring and evaluation within the humanitarian and development sectors. He holds an MSc in Global Development from University of Copenhagen.

At the Collaborative, he supports the team across the portfolio, managing project timelines, budgets, and grant compliance while managing financial oversight, reporting, and stakeholder engagement. With a background in research and data analysis, he also contributes to performance monitoring and project evaluation.

Email:[email protected]

Kate Harris, MSc

Senior Portfolio Advisor

Kate Harris, MSc

Senior Portfolio Advisor

Kate brings a combination of experience from the legal, educational, and humanitarian sectors. Her formal education helps to deliver strategic advice to the Director on portfolio management, finances, partnerships and operational decisions for the organisation. Additionally, her experience of providing executive and team support helps her navigate a balance between structure and flexibility required for complex project management.

Kate is motivated to ensure programmes run efficiently to enable MHPSS technical staff to focus their time and expertise to promoting mental health and wellbeing for children, youth, and families.

Email:[email protected]

Louise Juul Hansen

Advocacy and Communications Advisor

Louise Juul Hansen

Advocacy and Communications Advisor

Louise (she/her) is an advocacy and communications specialist with a master’s degree in media studies from the University of Copenhagen.

She has more than 15 years of experience in advocacy, communication and development of learning material in the field of mental health and psychosocial support.

Over the years, she has gained a special expertise in dissemination and communication of large research projects.

Louise strongly believes that the recipe for success for an organisation like ours is a combination of bringing together great expertise to produce results and to be able to communicate those results in the right way to the right people.

In her role, Louise works closely with our technical team and external partners on advocacy and communication. At the MHPSS, Louise advises on advocacy and communications for The Collaborative and its projects. She leads the communications and dissemination work for the REFUGE-ED project.

Email:[email protected]

Rachel Sheary

Communications Officer

Rachel Sheary

Communications Officer

Rachel brings a blend of storytelling expertise and strategic communications to her role as Communications Officer.

At the Collaborative, she manages social media and creates project specific content. Through her background in journalism, film, communications and human rights, she specializes in making complex topics accessible to a wider audience through strategic content creation and social media management.

Email:[email protected]

Victor Ugo

MHPSS and Youth Engagement Advisor

Victor Ugo

MHPSS and Youth Engagement Advisor

Dr. Victor Ugo is a medical doctor with an MSc in Global Mental Health from King’s College London and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. He is the founder of Mentally Aware Nigeria Initiative (MANI)—one of Africa’s largest youth-led, user-led mental health networks. Over the past decade, he has built grassroots organizations, driven policy change, and led mental health campaigns across multiple contexts. He has also been a leading voice in the global conversation on the wellbeing of young people as well as their meaningful engagement in programming, research, and advocacy. He has developed and advised on digital mental health solutions both in Africa and globally, while also designing, adapting and scaling programs for schools and communities.

Currently, as Senior Technical Advisor at the MHPSS Collaborative, Dr. Ugo provides oversight over the organization’s strategic direction as well as its four priority portfolios. He is deeply committed to the localization and decolonization of global health, and his work emphasizes empowering young people and communities to co-create and lead the development of culturally relevant, community-based mental health and wellbeing solutions that address their needs in their own contexts.

Email:[email protected]

Lead consultants

Jennifer Flemming

Research Advisor, Lead on Education and ECD

Jennifer Flemming

Research Advisor, Lead on Education and ECD

Dr. Jennifer (Jenn) Flemming is an applied social science researcher focused on education in emergencies and support to children, youth, and families in humanitarian contexts. Jenn holds a PhD in Education Policy, Research, and Administration from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and an MEd in International Education Policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. For the last decade, Jenn has led research for I/NGOs focused on holistic education programming, MHPSS in EiE, refugee and education policy, and resilience with emphasis on community, youth, and participant led design and methods. At the Collaborative, Jenn currently leads the three-year ‘MHPSS in Action’ research project studying education-based MHPSS programming in Kenya, Colombia, and Greece and serves as advisor for the education and ECD portfolio.

Email:[email protected]

Jura Augustinavicius, PhD

Research Advisor, Lead on Climate Change

Jura Augustinavicius, PhD

Research Advisor, Lead on Climate Change

Jura Augustinavicius is the Lead Researcher on climate change and MHPSS at the MHPSS Collaborative. She is also an Assistant Professor at the School of Population and Global Health at McGill University and an Adjunct Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Jura’s climate change and mental health work has a strong program implementation and evaluation focus. She regularly provides technical support to governments, NGOs, and UN agencies on mental health and psychosocial support in the context of climate change. Jura supports the MHPSS Collaborative’s climate change and MHPSS portfolio.

Email:[email protected]

Suzan Song, MD, MPH, PhD

Research Advisor, Lead on Emerging Challenges

Suzan Song, MD, MPH, PhD

Research Advisor, Lead on Emerging Challenges

Suzan Song, MD, MPH, PhD is the Portfolio Lead on Emerging MHPSS Challenges and Strategies at the MHPSS Collaborative. As well, she is Professor of Psychiatry and Director of Global Child and Family Mental Health at Harvard’s Boston Children’s Hospital. For the past two decades, she has focused on clinical care, policy/advocacy and research for children and families of forced migration, armed conflict, torture, trafficking and hostage across the U.S., sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe for various multilateral, governmental, academic, and community organizations. At the Collaborative, Suzan is developing a portfolio to convene actors and develop strategies on addressing emerging MHPSS challenges, anticipatory action and strategic foresight for children and families in humanitarian settings

Email:[email protected]

Advisory board

Anne Filorizzo Pla

Save the Children MHPSS Global lead

Anne Filorizzo Pla

Save the Children MHPSS Global lead

Graduated in Child Psychology, Anne started her clinical practice in 2005. After her first humanitarian mission in Lebanon, she stepped end of 2010, into her 1st emergency in Haiti, leading mental health and care practices responses integrated into health and nutrition programs. For the past 13 years, she has been advocating for human rights, building capacity on MHPSS and disability inclusion, contributing to the development of inter-agency guidance and promoting strategical cross-sectoral mainstreaming of MHPSS.

Sharon Sitania

Co-President Self Love Warrior Indonesia

Sharon Sitania

Co-President Self Love Warrior Indonesia

Sharon Sitania is a 20-year-old youth from Indonesia, she’s passionate in advocating social rights & mental health since the age of 16. Therefore, she’s continuously making movements through Self Love Warrior as the Co-President. She was also one of the UNICEF x AstraZeneca Young Leaders 2021. With this program, she has been a moderator for the INSPIRE Conference 2021 by WHO & UNICEF, Youth Speaker for the Global Mental Health Summit 2022, and one of the panelists for the AEAN-AUSTRALIA Youth Mental Health Fellowship Forum

Koen Sevenants

Mental Health and Psychosocial support lead for children and families in humanitarian emergencies at UNICEF

Koen Sevenants

Mental Health and Psychosocial support lead for children and families in humanitarian emergencies at UNICEF

Koen Sevenants is from Belgium and has 23 years of expertise in child protection and mental health care across all continents. Koen holds a PhD in Child and Adolescent Psychology and a Master’s Degree in Oriental Pediatrics. Koen received numerous national and international awards for his work to help children whose parents have been executed or are incarcerated. Since 2018, Koen is in charge of the MHPSS component of child protection within the UNICEF-led Global Child Protection Area of Responsibility. Koen is multilingual and spends 70% of his working time on mission.

Olivia Biermann

Health Policy and Systems Researcher

Olivia Biermann

Health Policy and Systems Researcher

Well-versed in financial reporting, ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements, and implementing robust internal controls to safeguard assets. I am a problem solver by nature.

Alessandro Massazza

Policy & Advocacy Advisor, United for Global Mental Health

Alessandro Massazza

Policy & Advocacy Advisor, United for Global Mental Health

Well-versed in financial reporting, ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements, and implementing robust internal controls to safeguard assets. I am a problem solver by nature.

Lorraine Sherr MBE

Professor of Clinical and Health Psychology, Institute for Global Health, University College London, UK

Lorraine Sherr MBE

Professor of Clinical and Health Psychology, Institute for Global Health, University College London, UK

Well-versed in financial reporting, ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements, and implementing robust internal controls to safeguard assets. I am a problem solver by nature.

Ananda Galappatti

MHPSS.net

Ananda Galappatti

MHPSS.net

Ananda Galappatti is a medical anthropologist and MHPSS practitioner based in Sri Lanka. Over the past 27 years, he has worked to strengthen services for vulnerable children and adults in conflict, disaster, post-war transition and development contexts. He has also been cconcerned with improving practitioner access to knowledge and skills, building collaborative networks and enhancing coherence within thee field of MHPSS in Sri Lanka and globally. Ananda is a co-Director of the global online platform MHPSS.net, and was a co-founder the journal Intervention. Ananda is also a visiting lecturer at the Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of Colombo.

Chiamaka P. Ojiako

Innovation Lead, East Midlands Imaging Network/Health Innovation East Midlands

Chiamaka P. Ojiako

Innovation Lead, East Midlands Imaging Network/Health Innovation East Midlands

Amaka is a lawyer and health policy professional with diverse work experience in the public, nonprofit and international development sectors. Her work is at the intersection of law, research, policy, and innovation, with a focus on health system governance and fostering health equity. She has published opinion pieces and articles on several global health topics with BMJ Global Health, PLOS Global Public Health etc. and hosts the Global Health Law and Policy Dialogue (GHLPd) platform on LinkedIn. Currently, she is working in the public sector to drive digital transformation for health and health data governance for research and innovation.

Who are we?

Core team

Marie Dahl

Deepali Pavagadhi

Elvire Rikkert

Karlo Dukic

Kate Harris, MSc

Louise Juul Hansen

Rachel Sheary

Victor Ugo

Lead consultants

Jennifer Flemming

Jura Augustinavicius, PhD

Suzan Song, MD, MPH, PhD

Advisory board

Anne Filorizzo Pla

Sharon Sitania

Koen Sevenants

Olivia Biermann

Alessandro Massazza

Lorraine Sherr MBE

Ananda Galappatti

Chiamaka P. Ojiako

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