Helen (Lena) Verdeli is an Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University, and the Founder and Director of the Teachers College Global Mental Health Lab. Over the years, Dr. Verdeli has secured funding from various governments (including the US-NIMH, Canadian government via Grand Challenges Canada, and UK agencies such as the Medical Research Council, Economic and Social Research Council, and the National Institute of Mental Health and Research); intergovernmental organizations (WHO, UNHCR); and foundations (NARSAD, Eleanor Cook Foundation, etc.) to test psychotherapy for prevention and treatment of mood disorders. In the past twenty years, Dr. Verdeli has played a key role in landmark studies involving adaptation, training, and testing of psychotherapy protocols used in resource-constraint regions by specialists and non-specialists, including psychologists, psychiatrists, primary care staff, and community health workers, among others. She collaborated internationally with academic groups, Ministries of Health, local NGOs and international agencies to implement clinical trials and capacity-building programs for depressed and anxious persons. These populations include depressed adults (in AIDS-affected southern Uganda and Haiti); depressed expectant and new mothers (in northern Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Lebanon); anxious and depressed youth (war-affected adolescents in IDP camps in northern Uganda and in Nepal); distressed primary care patients in India; depressed displaced persons in Bangladesh (Rohingya), Lebanon (Syrian), Tanzania (Burundian and Congolese) and Colombia (IDP women in Bogota); and distressed Student Veterans in the US.
Dr. Verdeli is also a Scientific Advisory Council member of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and the Scientific Advisory Board of Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance. She’s received the Klerman Young Scientist Award; the APA Division 52 Mentoring Award; and the Brucker Award, American College of Rehabilitation Medicine. She is the first author of the manual on Group Interpersonal Psychotherapy, which has been disseminated globally online by WHO and faculty on the WHO-Columbia Center of Excellence.