Project Lead:
Gordon Flett, Ann Kirkman, Gwen Erlam
Team Members:
Canada
Gordon Flett- Project Lead
Gordon Flett is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at York University and former Associate Dean of Research in the Faculty of Health. Dr. Flett holds a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Personality & Health and is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science. Dr. Flett is most known for his influential research on personality in health and mental health and his work with Paul Hewitt on perfectionism. More recently, Dr. Flett has worked on the promotion of resilience in collaboration with school boards in Ontario and the psychology of mattering as a positive force in people’s lives. He is the author or co-author of over 250 journal articles and 10 books. He has served as a guest editor of numerous special issues on perfectionism for various journals. His work has received widespread attention and has been the subject of numerous media stories, including coverage on CTV, CNN, and the BBC and in Maclean’s, the Globe and Mail, the Atlantic, the New York Times and the Washington Post. Dr. Flett’s work in the community has resulted in him receiving the City of Mississauga Certificate of Recognition award in 1999 and The Community and Leadership Award from Toastmasters International in 2006.
Masood Zangeneh
Masood is a Professor in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences and Innovative Learning, Humber College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning. He has a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of South Africa, Master of Education from Mount Saint Vincent University, and an Honours Bachelor of Science (Psychology) from the University of Toronto. He has recently been appointed as the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Ethnicity in Substance Abuse. He is also the founder of the Journal of Concurrent Disorders, Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction and a consultant to numerous scientific journals and universities for interdisciplinary, multi-cultural research and development addressing mental health, addiction and resilience among marginalized populations.
Priscilla Chou
Priscilla Chou completed her Honours in Bachelor of Applied Sciences in Psychology at the University of Guelph- Humber. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at the University of Detroit Mercy and is the managing editor for the Journal of Concurrent Disorders. Priscilla has also acquired a variety of research assistant experiences with research surrounding mattering, trauma, and Palestinian adolescents.
United Kingdom
Dr. Christian Michael Veasey is an experienced and creative academic with a strong commercial background, enabling students to gain a real-world perspective in their learning with academic underpinning. Passionate about knowledge transfer and creating assignments with real impact. Christian has over 20 years of sales and marketing experience in senior management positions, plus seven years of experience of working in global director roles for several entrepreneurial enterprises. Christian was awarded the student union lecturer of the year 2020/21.
Project Lead
Dr. Ann Kirkman is a lecturer in psychology at the University of Derby, UK. Her Ph.D. focussed on investigating the relationship between implicit and explicit measures of optimism and examining changes in them using positive psychology interventions. Since then, she has continued to teach, research, and publish in the area of positive psychology and well-being. As part of her research, Ann was involved in developing an online resource for postgraduate research students to support their well-being, learning and research: https://thewellbeingthesis.org.uk/. Recently Ann worked on a funded research project called Education for Mental Health. This project developed a national online toolkit for academic staff to help to support university student’s wellbeing: https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/education-mental-health-toolkit
(https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8195-9111)
Juliet Wilkes holds a BSc in Neuroscience and an MSc in Forensic Psychology. She currently works for the UK National Health Service (NHS) within forensic mental healthcare. Her research focus includes well-being in forensic populations, cross-cultural psychology, student mental health, and ikigai.
Dr Yoon Irons is an Associate Professor of Arts for Health and Wellbeing at University of Derby. Yoon was born and grew up in Busan, South Korea and studied and worked in Germany and Australia. Her background is music therapy, and she is passionate about using the arts for promoting health and wellbeing. Her research focus has been designing and evaluating group singing interventions for people living with long-term health conditions, such as Parkinson’s, chronic pain, mental health, and cystic fibrosis. Currently, at Derby, Yoon leads research projects on social prescribing and teaches research methods, and supervises PhD and Masters students. She also enjoys singing in the University choir and conducting the staff orchestra.
Dr Elaina Taylor (PhD, FHEA, CPsychol) is a Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Derby, UK. She has 12 years of experience teaching at further education and higher education level (BSc, MSc), and currently supervises several PhD students. She completed a PhD in Psychology at King’s College London examining the cognitive and behavioural predictors of health-related outcomes in cardiovascular patients. As well as extending this research, she is passionate about understanding cross-cultural experiences of mental health and wellbeing, recently publishing several papers in this area.
ORCID: 0000-0001-5736-7629
Dr. Ivana Babicova (BSc, PhD, FHEA) is a Lecturer in Psychology at Birmingham City University, UK. Her PhD focused on developing and validating observational pain assessment tools which allow objective and accurate identification of the presence and severity of pain in people with dementia who are no longer able to verbalise their pain. The observational tool, PainChek®, is now widely used across the world (https://www.painchek.com/uk/). Over the past few years, Ivana’s research interest also extended to general wellbeing and secondary traumatic stress.
Palestine
Dr. Fayez Mahamid is an associate professor in clinical mental health counseling. He is currently lecturing at An- Najah National University in undergraduate and graduate mental health programs. Dr. Mahamid supervised several projects in the fields of mental health, group therapy, trauma intervention and psycho-social rehabilitation in Palestine, and he also served as a head of Psychology Department and vice dean of the Graduate School of Human Sciences at An-Najah University. His research focus on investigating throughout mixed-methods research designs domains and dimensions of well-being in war-affected populations, therapeutic intervention, trauma intervention, mental health, internet addiction, clinical supervisor, and school counseling.
New Zealand
Dr. Jalal Mohammed is an academic with the Auckland University of Technology, where he is an Interim Head of the Department of Public Health. He is also a Senior Lecturer in Health Management. Jalal has held several leadership roles in departments and programmes focusing on health systems, health management and public health in several countries. With more than fifteen years of experience in academia, Jalal centres his practice around the learner and communities and their needs. His particular interest in creating engaging technology-enhanced learning environments has won teaching excellence awards and international recognition through his role in advising the UNDP Pacific Office on e-Learning.
Dr Mohammed’s research interests lie in strengthening health systems in low-and-middle-income countries. In particular, he is focused on researching health service decentralisation and health care reforms, access to health care, Pacific health systems, and broadly Pacific health. Through his research, Dr Mohammed aims to inform policy-makers, health managers, and health practitioners working in low-and-middle-income health systems to improve access to health care and health outcomes.
Jalal is a founding member and on the Executive Committee of the Aotearoa Fiji Research Collective, a fellow of the Aotearoa New Zealand Islamic Think Tank, and founder and convenor of the Pacific Online Learning and Teaching Network, a community of practitioners across the Pacific committed to developing online learning and teaching in the region. Jalal has also been on the National Council of the Public Health Association of New Zealand.
Dr. Mohammed is an Associate Fellow and Certified Health Manager of the Australasian College of Health Services Management (ACHSM) and an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia (HERDSA). Jalal holds a doctoral degree in public health focusing on health systems and several Master’s degrees in Public Health, Education and Business Administration. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
Dr. Meenal Rai is Head of Department of Interdisciplinary health in the Faculty of Health Education and Science at Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand. As an early career academic her research interests are centred on the dynamism of consumption practices within food, health and education sectors that sit on the cusp of social science and markets. Her research draws from and contributes to several streams of Consumer Culture Theory research such as behavioural change, food and education consumption, lifestyle transitions and Migrant health practices. Meenal is skilled at research design and the use of qualitative research methods including running online focus groups and incorporating projective techniques for data collection. As someone with over 28 years of teaching experience in the commercial and institutional education sector Meenal also has research interests in improving teaching and learning experiences, especially as they transition in the current online contexts.
Project Lead
Dr. Gwen Erlam is an expatriate American living in New Zealand. Prior to her appointment teaching in the Nursing Program at Auckland University of Technology, Dr Erlam served as a registered nurse for 25 years specialising in cardiac medicine. Upon entering her professional teaching career, she became aware of the need to prepare undergraduate nurses to manage deteriorating patient scenarios. Her research in maximising simulated learning environments for undergraduate nurses has been published in multiple journals focusing on simulation as a novel teaching and learning platform. Dr Erlam has presented at multiple conferences on the value of simulation for professional healthcare students, simulation’s influence on patient safety, methods for enhancing simulation as a teaching/learning platform, and the effect of modelling on undergraduate nursing students.
With the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr Erlam’s research broadened to include the effect of the emergency remote pivot to online teaching and learning for both academic staff and students. Dr Erlam explored key concerns during the pandemic including access to technology, effect of excessive screen time, work/life balance, loneliness and isolation, mental well-being, and managing boundaries when working from home. Further exploration of the construct of mattering has emerged as a relevant influence on both students and educators during this unprecedented time.
Dr. Kelvin Lau is a lecturer at the School of Public Health and Interdisciplinary Studies (SPHIS). With a background in molecular microbiology, his research interest is in the application of microbial ecology principles in the monitoring of environmental and human health. Kelvin has worked in both academic and commercial institutions. Since joining SPHIDS, Kelvin’s research has expanded into the area of community-centred health and wellbeing research. As an educator, Kelvin also has research interests in improving the learning and teaching experience, especially in the areas of wellbeing and feedback to learners. A mixed methods approach has been used in his research, including the analysis of quantitative multivariate datasets from high-throughput sequencing, and qualitative data from surveys.
Nick Garrett is an experienced applied biostatistician with over 28 years of experience in health research (9 years senior biostatistician at a NZ Crown Research Institute, 17 years senior research fellow level 8 at AUT, and 2 as Associate Professor). I collaborate on a large number of health and environmental research projects. In majority of the projects, I am lead biostatistician and take full responsibility for the design and analysis components. This includes ensuring the design of the project is appropriate and addresses the research questions under investigation, appropriate valid and reliable data measures are used, optimal statistical modelling is undertaken, and appropriate interpretation of results.
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9289-9743
https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=7006286844
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nick_Garrett
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-nicholas-garrett-5501869/
Dr Anja Vorster is a researcher and a social psychologist. She currently works as a research officer within the Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences at Auckland University of Technology. As a research officer she guides and supports other academics and post-graduate students with their research projects. Her own research focuses on intergroup relations and conflict, specifically, how emotions that people experience on behalf of others with whom they share a social identity with, influence their perceptions and behavioural intentions.
United States
Prior to her appointment as Dean of the College of Social Work and Criminal Justice at Florida Atlantic University (FAU), Dr. Naelys Luna served for three years as a professor and director of the Phyllis & Harvey Sandler School of Social Work at FAU. She earned her MSW and Ph.D. in Social Work from Fordham University in New York and her BA from Seton Hall University in New Jersey. As a licensed Social Worker (NY and NJ), she helped develop ADHD and PTSD programs in a child and adolescent outpatient psychiatric hospital. Dr. Luna has provided clinical social work services to children, adolescents and their families in outpatient units, partial care programs and private practice. Her research interests and multiple publications in national and international journals are in the areas of substance use disorders, mood disorders, spirituality, parental roles, mental health outcomes in minorities (especially Latinos) and psychosocial functioning. Dr. Luna is also the former president of the Florida Association of Deans and Directors (FADD), a board member for the National Association of Deans and Directors (NADD), a board member for the Association of Latino/Latina Social Work Educators (ALLSWE) and an editorial board member for the Journal of Concurrent Disorders.
Dr. Manny John González earned his MSW degree from New York University and his Ph.D. from Adelphi University. Prior to his current appointment at Florida Atlantic University—he held tenured faculty positions at the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College and The Graduate Center of the City University of New York and Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service. Dr. González’s research and scholarship interests include mental health/mental illness, the application of developmental and psychodynamic theories to clinical practice, psychological and physical well-being among Hispanic immigrants, the psychodynamics of fathering and fatherhood, men’s studies, doctoral education, and clinical research using qualitative and quantitative methods. He has taught graduate courses at the MSW and Ph.D. level in clinical practice, relational psychotherapy, family therapy, group therapy, psychopathology, evidence-based mental health practice, translational science, research proposal development, contemporary psychodynamic theories, and adult pedagogy. Dr. González has published numerous articles and chapters on mental health practice with immigrants and refugees, clinical practice with Hispanics, urban children, evidence-based practice, clinical social work practice, and interprofessional collaboration in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease. His book credits (co-edited) include Mental Health Care of New Hispanic Immigrants: Innovations in Contemporary Clinical Practice (Haworth Press) and Multicultural Perspectives in Working with Families: A Handbook for the Helping Professions (Springer Press). Dr. González was awarded the Hunter College Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2016. He has practiced as a clinician for 35 years specializing in community mental health—and maintained a private practice in psychodynamic psychotherapy and clinical supervision in Brooklyn Heights, New York until his arrival at Florida Atlantic University in 2017.
China
Dr. Ihua Chen is a Distinguished Professor in the Chinese Academy of Education Big Data, Qufu Normal University, China. He received his Ph.D. in Education from Cheng-Kung University, Taiwan, in 2014, and then went to work in mainland China (Guizhou University of Finance and Economics) and Thailand (Dhurakij Pundit University) as department head and full-time teacher. Dr. Chen returned to mainland China and was employed by Qufu Normal University since 2016. His ongoing research interests are psychometric studies, problematic Internet behaviors, mental health among K-12 students and teachers, digital learning, and secondary data-analysis.
Taiwan
Jeffrey Gamble, Ph.D. (Education: Curriculum and Assessment), is an assistant professor at National Changhua University of Education. His research interests are student and teacher psychological well-being, including constructs related to mattering and school belonging, psychological need thwarting, psychological stress and burnout, and problematic internet use. Professor Gamble is active in international, cross-cultural, and cross-university research collaboration and is currently investigating the psychological needs of students and teachers in compulsory English as a foreign language learning (including English as a Medium of Instruction) and the translation and validation of relevant instruments into Chinese. Professor Gamble serves actively as a peer reviewer for several journals in the field of mental health and public health. In addition to research and teaching, he is actively involved in service for rural and remote schools, offering interdisciplinary bilingual learning programs as a volunteer and serving as a consultant for several national in-service teacher training and evaluation programs.
Malaysia
Associate Prof. Dr Anne Yee, MPM (UM), PhD (UM).
Associate Prof. Dr. Anne Yee is currently an associate professor and clinical psychiatrist at the University of Malaya and University Malaya Medical Center, respectively. She is also an active researcher at the University Malaya Center of Addiction Science (UMCAS), the co-ordinator of the Nicotine Addiction Research Group (NARCC). Her contribution to society is greatly reflected by her dedication and work done as honorary secretary in the Addiction Medicine Association of Malaysia (AMAM).Her research and clinical interests are mainly in addiction and dual diagnosis. In 2015, her team obtained a competitive grant for further expand the options of smoking cessation. Currently, her whole team now is the national leaders in smoking cessation and have developed a mobile apps for smoking cessation which is suitable for Malaysian. In 2020, Associate Prof. Dr Anne Yee has received Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS) to do the research on “Elucidation of the Effects of Cigarette, Electronic Cigarette and Dual-Use on Cellular Morphology, Biochemical and Genetic Profile Alterations of Smokers” and “Investigating The Quantum Effects In The Brain Electroencephalogram (EEG) Under Amphetamine type Stimulant (ats) Influences”. Besides, she also the sub principal investigator obtained an external grant for “Developing an online intervention to reduce sexual risk and drug use-related harms among stimulant-using men who have sex with men (MSM) in Malaysia” Associate professor Dr. Anne has many academic publications in both local and international journals with 91publications, H-index of 16. She has also frequently been invited as a speaker in various local and international conferences.
Turkey
Gökmen Arslan, Ph.D.
Dr. Gökmen Arslan is an associate professor at Burdur Mehmet Akif Ersoy University, Türkiye, and an honorary senior fellow at the Center for Wellbeing Science, University of Melbourne, Australia. He is a researcher in the field of counselling psychology, with a core interest in children and adolescent mental health and wellbeing. His orientation toward counselling is grounded in contextual behavioral science, and his interests are broadly focused on youth mental health and wellbeing. His research explores how best to provide meaningful programs and resources that improve positive youth development and well-being.
Dr. Arslan is currently the founding editor of the Journal of Happiness and Health and the Journal of School and Educational Psychology. He is also the associate editor of the Journal of Ethnicity in Substance Abuse and the statistical consultant of The Educational and Developmental Psychologist. In addition, Dr. Arslan represents psychology as a profession in other research areas and fields. As such, he is a member of six international transdisciplinary research teams based in the U.K., the U.S., Iran, Turkey, Malaysia, and Australia and provides many collaborations on positive school psychology in the international context.
Dr. Arslan also is a Certified Diplomat of the Academy of Cognitive and Behavioral Therapies and has expertise across the lifespan working with children, adolescents, and adults.
Dr. Murat Yıldırım is an associate professor of psychology and obtained his master’s (MSc) and PhD degrees from the University of Leicester, United Kingdom. Dr Yıldırım completed his postdoctoral training at the University of Leicester between 2019-2021. Dr Yıldırım is currently working as an Associate Professor of Psychology at Ağrı İbrahim Çeçen University, Turkey and a visiting associate professor at Nottingham Trent University, United Kingdom. His research has mainly focused on the examination of the mechanisms underlying well-being and mental health. Dr Yıldırım primarily uses quantitative methods with advanced statistical techniques in his research and has a particular interest in psychological factors promoting well-being and positive mental health. He has published more than 100 scientific papers in high-ranking peer-reviewed international journals and 12 books/book chapters. He has been featured in World’s Top 2% Scientists List created by Stanford University in 2022.
Oman
Dr. Samir Al-Adawi has been a professor of Behavioral Medicine at College of Medicine, Sultan Qaboos University since May 2010. Previously, he was Fulbright Senior Scholar, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA and a research scientist sponsored by Matsumae International Foundation at the Department of Psychosomatic Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, the University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan. Dr. Al-Adawi has done his undergraduate training in Cairo, Egypt and University of Surrey, UK. His doctorate training was at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College, UK. Dr Al Adawi has research interest in interplay between idiom of distress and epidemiology of cognitive and psychological disorders.