Amanda Nguyen, PhD

Assistant Professor, University of Virginia School of Education and Human Development

Amanda is an Assistant Professor at the University of Virginia’s School of Education and Human Development with a primary appointment in Youth-Nex, the UVA Center to Promote Effective Youth Development. She is also an affiliate of UVA’s Global Infectious Disease Institute and the Humanitarian Collaborative at UVA. She earned her doctorate in public mental health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Nguyen’s primary research interests focus on innovative approaches to deliver and evaluate culturally and contextually appropriate MHPSS programs in settings with human resource limitations for service delivery. Much of her work involves task-sharing approaches and partnerships with community organizations, and she has a particular interest in prevention programming integrated into education and other sectors. She has conducted research in many LMIC including Iraq, Chechnya, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Uganda, among others. She has also led and collaborated on multiple initiatives to build a research agenda for psychosocial programming in humanitarian settings through stakeholder engagement and evidence reviews. Her current work includes developing and testing psychosocial interventions for conflict-affected people in Ukraine and Bangladesh, as well as similar work building mental health service capacity in rural US schools.

Email: ajnguyen@virginia.edu

Professional Expertise

Disciplines

Epidemiology, Public health, Social and behavioral sciences

Topical EXPERTISE

Common mental health conditions, Conflict/post-conflict settings, Displaced population health, migration/refugee issues, Stress and coping

Methodological Areas

Efficacy/effectiveness trials, Implementation science, Intervention development and testing, Measurement/psychometrics, Program evaluation, Quantitative methods, Systematic review/metaanalyses

Strategies expertise

Decision supports, Dissemination and implementation, Intervention scale-up, Task shifting/sharing

Intervention Expertise

Mental health awareness/promotion, Psychosocial skills, School-based interventions, Cognitive behavioral therapy

Partnership Expertise

Community-based organizations/coalitions, International NGOs, Schools and universities