Syrian Refugee Mental Health in Jordan and San Diego

Morgen A. Chalmiers

Morgen A. Chalmiers is a graduate student in Psychological and Medical Anthropology as well as a medical student in the combined MD/PhD Medical Scientist Training Program at the UC San Diego School of Medicine. She is passionate about integrating anthropological insights into clinical practice and health policy through interdisciplinary collaboration.

Morgen’s research broadly examines women’s experiences of reproductive healthcare using the tools and theoretical lens of psychological anthropology. Her current project employs a critical feminist framework to understand how reproductive subjectivities are shaped in the context of displacement. She is especially interested in the overlap between religious subjectivity, maternal mental health, and bodily experience. For her dissertation research, she will work with transnational Syrian refugee families living in San Diego, California and Irbid, Jordan. She will employ person-centered, ethnographic, and phenomenological methods to understand the gendered challenges to mental health and wellbeing that arise in relation to reproductive life after displacement.

Morgen's research interests include Maternal/Perinatal Mental Health, Global Mental Health, Childbirth, Critical Refugee Studies, Sexual and Reproductive Health, Trauma, Humanitarianism, Embodiment, Subjectivity, and Gender Studies.