A clinical psychologist and Haiti native, Dr. Gilberte (“Gigi”) Bastien currently serves as the Associate Director for the Office of Global Health Equity at Morehouse School of Medicine and is Assistant Professor within MSM’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Dr. Bastien’s research and clinical interests focus on the intersection of culture and mental health with the aim of improving accessibility, acceptability, and efficacy of mental health services for underserved populations. Dr. Bastien’s complementary interests in disaster mental health and global mental health capacity building were largely influenced by her involvement in the mental health response to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.

During her stint as a Satcher Health Leadership Institute (SHLI) health policy fellow at Morehouse School of Medicine, Dr. Bastien gained invaluable training in health leadership and the use of effective strategies for advancing policy solutions to mental health and broader health disparities both domestically and globally. This training was brought to bear in completing an NIH Fogarty Global Health Fellowship project in collaboration with the Carter Center’s Mental Health Program in Liberia. Specifically, this project focused on understanding mental health and resilience in Ebola affected communities in Liberia. Dr. Bastien’s experiences during the Fogarty fellowship further strengthened her interest in leveraging large-scale emergencies as a pathway to addressing pre-existing mental health disparities in LMICs and other resource constrained settings.