ABOUT

Orkideh Behrouzan is a medical doctor, medical anthropologist, and bilingual author and poet. As an academic and consultant, she combines her interdisciplinary expertise with two decades of experience in research and analysis, leadership, writing and public speaking, teaching, mentoring, and [interdisciplinary] degree programme and curricula design and implementation in the US and the UK. Behrouzan is the author of Prozak Diaries: Psychiatry and Generational Memory in Iran (2016, Stanford University Press), a 2021-22 Fellow of the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA), a 2015-16 fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), and the winner of the 2011 Kerr Award from the Middle Eastern Studies Association. She received her PhD in History and Anthropology of Science and Technology (HASTS) from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and currently teaches at the Department of Anthropology at SOAS, University of London. For more about her teaching and research, please click here.

Behrouzan contributes to several advisory boards and editorial collectives (including the Otherwise Magazine). In 2022, she joined the advising faculty at the Behavioural Sciences Consortium (BSC) of the Patient Centricity Division at Astellas.

BEYOND TRAUMA

Behrouzan is the founder of the Beyond Trauma Initiative. In 2014, she created the collaborative, multi-cited initiative Beyond ''Trauma': Emergent Agendas for Understanding Mental Health in the Middle East. This interdisciplinary project aims to bring together scholars, artists, practitioners, and policymaker, towards an inclusive approach to psychological wellbeing, by foregrounding the compelling role of diverse cultural practices, historical conditions, moral contexts, and medical pedagogies in shaping the afterlife of social ruptures. In light of today’s rapid transformations in the region and the movement of displaced individuals, the project responds to the pressing need for a cultural critique of dominant PTSD-focused paradigms in health practice and policy. Behrouzan launched the initiative with a 2014 Wellcome Trust funded international workshop, Beyond 'Trauma': Workshop on Emergent Agendas, followed by the publication of the 2015 Beyond Trauma Special Issue in Medicine, Anthropology, Theory. For more, please see: https://www.beyondtraumaproject.com

Academic Positions

2017-present. Associate Professor, SOAS University of London

2021-22 Fellow of the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA)

2020. Faculty Leave Fellow, Crown Centre for Middle East Studies, Brandeis University

2012-2017. Assistant Professor, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, King’s College London

2015-2016. Fellow. American Council of Leanred Societies (ACLS)

2010-2012. Assistant Professor in Medical Anthropology, Institute for the Medical Humanities (IMH), University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB). Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, Rice University (For more, click here)

2010. Ph.D., History and Anthropology of Science, Technology and Society (HASTS), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

2008-2009. Social Science Research Council (SSRC) Fellow & Wenner Gren Fellow

2002-2005. Research Scholar in Molecular Genetics, Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Oxford

2004. UK Medical Board

2002. M.D., Faculty of Medicine, University of Tehran

Bio

Beyond Trauma

Events

EVENTS

COVID-19 in the Middle East: Medical Perspectives. Virtual Summer Series. Kevorkian Centre, New York University (NYU). June 9, 2020

The Lived Experience of COVID-19 in Iran. Harvard University Friday Morning Seminars. Harvard Anthropology. May 8, 2020

Iran's Response to the CoronaVirus Crisis: Webinar Q&A. Crown Centre for Middle East Studies, Brandies University. April 21, 2020