Bard Research Scholar Sayed Jafar Ahmadi and His Wife, Psychologist Zeinab Musavi, Recognized for Humanitarian Work in Afghanistan
Bard research scholar Sayed Jafar Ahmadi and his wife and fellow psychologist Zeinab Musavi have provided counseling for victims of trauma, bombings, the COVID-19 pandemic, and earthquakes in Afghanistan for two decades, and educated future psychologists along the way. Their work recently earned the American Psychological Association’s 2024 International Humanitarian Award, which recognizes “extraordinary humanitarian service and activism by a psychologist or a team of psychologists, including professional and/or volunteer work conducted primarily in the field with underserved populations.”
Bard Research Scholar Sayed Jafar Ahmadi and His Wife, Psychologist Zeinab Musavi, Recognized for Humanitarian Work in Afghanistan
Bard research scholar Sayed Jafar Ahmadi and his wife and fellow psychologist Zeinab Musavi have provided counseling for victims of trauma, bombings, the COVID-19 pandemic, and earthquakes in Afghanistan for two decades, and educated future psychologists along the way. Their work recently earned the American Psychological Association’s 2024 International Humanitarian Award, which recognizes “extraordinary humanitarian service and activism by a psychologist or a team of psychologists, including professional and/or volunteer work conducted primarily in the field with underserved populations.”
Bard College Research Scholar in Psychology Sayed Jafar Ahmadi has been selected as a recipient of the 2024 American Psychological Association (APA) International Humanitarian Award. Sponsored by APA’s Committee for Global Psychology, this award recognizes extraordinary humanitarian service and activism by a psychologist or a team of psychologists, including professional and/or volunteer work conducted primarily in the field with underserved populations.
Bard Faculty Member Sayed Jafar Ahmadi Receives 2024 APA International Humanitarian Award
Bard College Research Scholar in Psychology Sayed Jafar Ahmadi has been selected as a recipient of the 2024 American Psychological Association (APA) International Humanitarian Award. Sponsored by APA’s Committee for Global Psychology (APA-CGP), this award recognizes extraordinary humanitarian service and activism by a psychologist or a team of psychologists, including professional and/or volunteer work conducted primarily in the field with underserved populations. The formal presentation of this award, which includes an honorarium of $1000, will take place during a virtual awards ceremony later this year. Ahmadi received this award along with his wife Zeinab Musavi, who is also a psychologist and academic scholar.
“I am pleased that we have been able to reflect a portion of the human suffering in my homeland within the world's largest and most important psychology organization. Receiving this award increases my responsibility to continue humanitarian activities and strive for collective empathy, as well as engage in global psychological initiatives to promote greater human peace and tranquility,” said Dr. Ahmadi. “I would like to express my gratitude for the award, extending my thanks to APA-CGP. Additionally, I appreciate TSI-OSUN, Bard College, and IIE for providing the platform for peace, research, and ongoing humanitarian efforts.”
Dr. Sayed Jafar Ahmadihas been a research scholar in psychology at Bard College since spring 2022. With a career spanning about two decades, Dr. Ahmadi is recognized as a pioneer in establishing the first clinical psychology department in Afghanistan, playing a crucial role in developing the counseling psychology program. The impact of his work extends through the Behrawan Research and Psychology Services Organization, significantly contributing to the advancement of psychology and the training of specialized psychologists in Afghanistan. Collaborations with institutions such as Hunter College, Monash University in Australia, and Bedfordshire University in England highlight his professional journey. Dr. Ahmadi has also spearheaded numerous research projects in Afghanistan and is the author of over 40 articles and books, primarily focusing on subjects such as autism, trauma, and peace.
In “The Chimpanzee Wars,” a recent post to Wild Cousins, her Psychology Today UK blog, Associate Professor of Psychology Sarah Dunphy-Lelii engages in a thought experiment about how the state of knowing and of understanding of who knows and who doesn’t know could potentially impact the politics of power transfer within dominance hierarchies of chimpanzees.
Psychologist Sarah Dunphy-Lelii Considers the Politics of Sudden Power Transfer Among Chimpanzees
In “The Chimpanzee Wars,” a recent post to Wild Cousins, her Psychology Today UK blog, Associate Professor of Psychology Sarah Dunphy-Lelii engages in a thought experiment about how the state of knowing and of understanding of who knows and who doesn’t know could potentially impact the politics of power transfer within dominance hierarchies of chimpanzees.
Among more than 200 Ngogo chimpanzees living in Kibale National Park, Uganda, one undisputed alpha named Jackson ruled for years until internal conflicts split the largest known chimpanzee community into two warring factions—Westerners and Centrallers. After Jackson is killed from injuries sustained in a battle, no younger alpha males step up to seize leadership of the Centrallers. A likely explanation, according to researchers, is that they didn’t know Jackson was dead. Only one Centraller, a potential alpha named Peterson, witnessed his death, and none found his body. Theoretically, Peterson could have used this position to his advantage. “Chimpanzees are socially sophisticated. Their dominance hierarchies are not based solely on physical strength. What we might call politics—the accumulation of social capital through strategic alliances over time—play a significant role in the rise to leadership. Under conditions like this one, between the Westerners and the Centrallers, insight into others’ states of knowledge could be decisive,” writes Dunphy-Lelii. She notes, however, that evidence to date suggests chimps, like Peterson, are not using this information the way humans would.
Reem-Kayden Center5:00 pm EST/GMT-5 Join our December graduating seniors as they present their senior project research!
Thursday, November 7, 2024
Reshma Ramachandran, Yale School of Medicine Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito '60 Auditorium4:00 pm EST/GMT-5 The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has a seemingly conflicting mission. On one hand, the agency acts as a national regulator, ensuring that medical products including drugs and medical devices are “more effective, safer, and more affordable.” On the other hand, the FDA has played a significant role in “helping to speed innovation” through the increased adoption of flexibility in its regulatory standards for approval. Recent controversial approvals have raised questions around this tension, and the FDA is currently facing several judicial challenges seeking to undermine its administrative authority and ability to carry out regulatory decisions based on clinical and scientific expertise. This talk will discuss the opposing circumstances that the FDA faces and what can be done to protect and strengthen the FDA’s role as a national regulator in protecting public health.
Reshma Ramachandran, MD, MPP, MHS is a board-certified family physician, health services researcher, and assistant professor at Yale School of Medicine. Her research focuses on the realignment of incentives for healthcare stakeholders including pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and universities towards prioritizing equitable patient access to safe, effective health technologies. She codirects the Yale Collaboration for Regulatory Rigor, Integrity, and Transparency, an interdisciplinary initiative that researches medical product evaluation, approval, and coverage aligned with the goal of advancing policies that improve patient health and healthcare.
Friday, October 25, 2024
Reem-Kayden Center4:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 Join our summer research students as they present their work!
Thursday, October 24, 2024
Amelia Stanton, Boston University Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito '60 Auditorium4:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 Sexual health is not merely the absence of disease or impairment, but a state of physical, emotional, mental, and social wellbeing. Sexual and mental health influence each other, especially in marginalized populations, such that social and cultural attitudes may lead to guilt, shame, or stigma around sexual behaviors or identities. In this talk, I will describe two ongoing intervention development projects that sit at the intersection of sexual and mental health: one focused on addressing common underlying factors of depression and posttraumatic stress to support pre-exposure prophylaxis use among pregnant persons at risk for HIV acquisition in South Africa, and one that seeks to improve sexual desire, arousal, and satisfaction among transgender women based in the Boston area. Broadly, my research focuses on (1) mitigating psychological barriers to optimal sexual and reproductive health; (2) the intersection of sexual health, mental health, and substance use disparities in marginalized and minoritized populations, both internationally and domestically; and (3) the development and evaluation of psychosocial interventions for populations at risk for poor sexual health. Thus far, most of my work has engaged women, pregnant people, and gender expansive individuals. Through projects that are based in sub-Saharan Africa, I am actively engaged in efforts to democratize and decolonize global mental health.
Thursday, October 3, 2024
Presented by Elena Kim, Psychology Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito '60 Auditorium4:00 pm – 5:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 This presentation is based on a qualitative study of nebere aluu, an intergenerational child-rearing practice (translated as taking a grandchild), historically observed in some Central Asian kinship systems. In nebere aluu, individuals are expected to voluntarily yield custody of their firstborns to their paternal grandparents who adopt and raise them as their own. Signifying an important life achievement, the practice contributes to grandparents’ social status. Scholarly discussions about nebere aluu, though rare, have emphasized its acceptance as an ethnic tradition and a cultural norm. Popular sources, also scarce, have tended to sensationalize or pathologize it, creating narratives which emphasize nebere aluu's adverse psychological and socialization effects on children so raised. Adopting the intellectual traditions of the Indigenous and Critical Psychologies which advocate for creating psychological knowledge as deeply rooted in the particularities of specific contexts and as reflective of the local voices, this study offers a shift towards an empirical exploration of nebere aluu through subjective experiences of adult individuals who were raised in such arrangements.
This presentation's analytic focus is on narratives of care and bonding. These narratives articulate competing discourses of generational continuity, ideological disruptions, loss and reconnection. Findings are discussed in terms of the visible and invisible power asymmetries that nebere aluu appears to perpetuate and linkages of the practice to the unique Central Asian condition characterized by the history of colonization, political volatility, economic instability and social insecurity.
Tuesday, August 13, 2024
Sylvester James Gates, Jr. Clark Leadership Chair in Science, Distinguished University Professor, and Regents Professor at the University of Maryland Blithewood5:00 pm – 6:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 In 1995 Edward Witten, described by Brian Greene as “a million times smarter than we are,” proposed a solution to the “quantum gravity problem” that evaded Stephen Hawking. Until 2020, no solution consistent with Richard Feynman’s view of quantum theory had been found. Einstein believed “...science and art tend to coalesce,” and following this connection the speaker and two PhD students found the first such solution. This talk describes how artwork solved a mathematics problem. Reception to follow
The inaugural MathScape combines an international workshop on cutting-edge research in mathematics with a public lecture linking to the arts and humanities. MathScape 2024 features the mathematics used by the physicists in their quest to create a “theory of everything”.
MathScape 2024 is supported by Chuck Doran, Distinguished Visiting Professor of Mathematics and Physics
Tuesday, May 21, 2024
C. Thi Nguyen in conversation with Johnny Brennan Online Event7:00 pm – 8:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 A key vulnerability for cognitively limited beings such as ourselves arises from trust. Much of the current misinformation crisis seems to derive from misplaced trust—trust in antiscience celebrities, trust in conspiracy theory forums and propagandistic media networks sources. Because we are so cognitively small, in order to cope with the world, we must trust each other, and that trust makes us profoundly vulnerable. That trust can be exploited, even when we have done our due diligence.
In this event, C. Thi Nguyen will discuss his idea of “hostile epistemology” as the study of the ways in which environmental features exploit our cognitive vulnerabilities—especially those vulnerabilities that are unavoidable because they arise from the essential condition of our epistemic lives. We are essentially finite beings, with limited cognitive resources. We are perpetually reasoning in a rush, because there is far too more information than we could ever fully process. Our desperate attempts to cope with a cognitively overwhelming world will inevitably leave holes in our armor. And the world can take advantage of those vulnerabilities. In the face of all this, how can the individual, with their inadequate understanding, select which group to trust?
Frank Scalzo, Psychology Program Preston Theater4:00 pm – 5:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 In this presentation, I will review how the zebrafish model is being used to answer questions in environmental toxicology and behavioral neuroscience. Examples will be presented from my experiences as a Fulbright Specialist at the National Institute of Biology in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in 2023. These include the use of proteomics, the development of a high throughput analysis system for environmental contaminants, and water monitoring in the Adriatic Sea.
Thursday, April 4, 2024
Reshma Ramachandran, Yale School of Medicine Preston Theater4:00 pm – 5:30 pm EDT/GMT-4 The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has an almost seemingly conflicting mission. On one hand, the agency acts as a national regulator, ensuring that medical products including drugs and medical devices are “more effective, safer, and more affordable.” On the other hand, FDA has played a significant role in “helping to speed innovation” through the increased adoption of flexibility in its regulatory standards for approval. Recent controversial approvals have raised questions around this tension, prompting public outcry and calls for the agency to adopt more robust regulatory standards to mitigate the potential patient harms of employing such regulatory flexibility. Amidst this, FDA is currently facing several judicial challenges seeking to undermine its administrative authority and ability to carry out regulatory decisions based on clinical and scientific expertise. This talk will discuss these two circumstances that the FDA faces and what can be done to protect and strengthen the FDA’s role as a national regulator in protecting public health.
Reshma Ramachandran, MD, MPP, MHS is a board-certified family physician, health services researcher, and Assistant Professor at Yale School of Medicine. Her research focuses on the realignment of incentives for healthcare stakeholders including pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and universities towards prioritizing equitable patient access to safe, effective health technologies. She co-directs the Yale Collaboration for Regulatory Rigor, Integrity, and Transparency, an interdisciplinary initiative that researches medical product evaluation, approval, and coverage towards advancing policies that improve patient outcomes. Prior to this role, Reshma worked as research faculty as part of the Innovation + Design Enabling Access (IDEA) Initiative at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School ofPublic Health, where she focused on policies to address the global challenge of antimicrobial resistance and unaffordable access to prescription drugs. Dr. Ramachandran trained in both medicine at the Alpert Medical School at Brown University and in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She completed her family medicine residency at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center and health services research and policy fellowship at the National Clinician Scholars Program at Yale. Previously, she served as the first PharmFree Fellow with the American Medical Student Association focused on removing the undue influence of pharmaceutical companies on prescribing behavior and medical education. She currently chairs the Doctors for America FDA Task Force. She also is the Board President of Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) North America.
Friday, March 29, 2024
Campus Center, Weis Cinema12:00 pm – 1:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 Carol Gilligan's landmark book In a Different Voice (1982)—the “little book that started a revolution” brought women's voices to the fore in work on the self and moral development, enabling women to be heard in their own right, and with their own integrity, for the first time. Forty years later, Gilligan returns to the subject matter of her classic book, re-examining its central arguments and concerns from the vantage point of the present. Thanks to the work that she and others have done in recent decades, it is now possible to clarify and articulate what couldn't quite be seen or said at the time of the original publication: that the “different voice” (of care ethics), although initially heard as a “feminine” voice, is in fact a human voice—and that the voice it differs from is a patriarchal voice (bound to gender binaries and hierarchies). While gender is central to the story Gilligan tells, this is not a story about gender: it is a human story.
Copies of the book will be signed and sold.
This event is sponsored by the Gender Equity Initiative, the Hannah Arendt Center, the Office of the Dean of Inclusive Excellence, the Open Society University Network, the Master of Arts in Teaching Program, and the Programs in Gender and Sexuality Studies, Philosophy, Psychology, and Sociology
Wednesday, March 27, 2024
Geillan Aly, Compassionate Math Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito '60 Auditorium1:30 pm – 3:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 The field of STEM offers many personal and professional rewards. However, emotions may stand in the way of such rewards. In this workshop, we will explore imposter syndrome and other socioemotional phenomena which may affect one’s ability to engage with and succeed in a field as competitive and demanding as those in STEM. Participants will have an opportunity to explore and reflect on their feelings towards studying STEM. Participants begin by reflecting on and sharing their previous learning experiences to place these experiences in context, learning that: (1) they are not alone; (2) their experiences are likely not tied to them as an individual, but are a result of sociohistorical forces. This allows students to think deeply and critically about how they approach their studies. Participants then reorient themselves based on these new realizations and their motivation to succeed. This reorientation includes strategies and tips for studying, focusing on learning mathematics in particular. Finally the workshop gives participants an opportunity to work on a mathematical problem, setting the stage for a positive opportunity to engage with mathematics and their other studies. All participants are encouraged to participate in small-group and whole session discussions throughout the program, reducing the “I’m alone” stigma and forming bonds with others in the group. They are also encouraged to continue working and studying together after the workshop is completed.
Dr. Geillan Aly, the Founder of Compassionate Math, is a math educator who centers the socioemotional factors that contribute to success in mathematics. She holds the fundamental assumption that learning math is both an emotional and cognitive endeavor. A former award-winning Assistant Professor who has taught for over fifteen years, Dr. Aly transforms math classrooms through engaging professional development and student-focused workshops that center emotions while establishing a culture of engaging with rigorous mathematics. She received her PhD in Teaching and Teacher Education and Master’s in Mathematics from the University of Arizona. Underlying Dr. Aly’s work is a dedication to equity and social justice. She enjoys traveling and seeing live music and is an avid chef, wife, and mother to a beautiful boy.
Thursday, March 7, 2024
Thomas Hutcheon, Psychology Program Preston Theater4:00 pm – 5:30 pm EST/GMT-5 From the very earliest stages of development, humans prioritize information about the faces of others. Faces carry important information about the identity, thoughts, emotions, and future behavior of an individual. In addition to static features of a face, the direction of a face’s gaze provides information about a person’s attention and intention. Accumulating evidence suggests that gaze-following is not simply a bottom-up (reflexive) process, but is modulated by top-down factors including social characteristics of both the face stimulus and the observer. This talk will review recent work conducted in the Bard Attention and Performance (BAP) which has sought to better understand how and why these top-down factors impact behavior.
Thursday, February 22, 2024
Betty Lin, SUNY Albany Preston Theater4:00 pm – 5:30 pm EST/GMT-5 In this talk, I will share about my research investigating the various ways in which prenatal and early life stressors related to socioecological disadvantage can affect fetal and infant health, development, and well-being in ways that have enduring consequences for lifespan health and well-being. This work draws from theory and research on fetal and developmental programming, and outlines a framework for understanding how systemic disadvantage can “get under the skin” in ways that have implications for generations of children and families from marginalized communities. Lastly, I discuss how this work sheds light on possible reasons for existing racial disparities in Black maternal-infant health.