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Morgen Chalmiers, MD-PhD student
Morgan Chalmiers is a Ph.D. candidate in Psychological and Medical Anthropology as well as a medical student in the Medical Scientist Training Program at the UC San Diego School of Medicine. Morgen was awarded both an NSF dissertation grant and a Fulbright fellowship to support her anthropological and medical research on reproductive health among Syrian refugee women in Amman Jordan and San Diego. Currently, she is in Jordan completing her dissertation research. In June 2020 she was awarded the prestigious Haydu Prize from the Department of Anthropology for her dissertation project in relation to Culture, Experience, and Human Values.
Her research broadly examines women’s experiences of reproductive healthcare using the tools and theoretical lens of psychological anthropology. She works with a collaborative team across the UC campuses to conduct community-engaged, multi-sited research on resettled refugee women’s experiences of reproductive healthcare. Her current project employs critical feminist theory and phenomenological analysis to investigate disparities in maternal mental health among immigrant and refugee communities in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, with a particular focus on postpartum PTSD. She is passionate about integrating anthropological insights into clinical practice and health policy through interdisciplinary collaboration.
Morgen's research interests include Maternal/Perinatal Mental Health, PTSD, Global Mental Health, Childbirth, Reproductive Health, Trauma, Qualitative/Mixed Methods Research, Embodiment, Refugee Health, and Critical Gender Studies.
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Giselle Sanchez, M.A., C. Phil.
Giselle Sanchez is a Ph.D. candidate in Psychological and Medical Anthropology and the Coordinator for the Center for Global Mental Health. Her research focuses on the lived experiences of adolescents and their families who live under conditions of social and structural adversity in the Southern California and Tijuana, B.C, Mexico border zone. In particular, her dissertation project examines adolescents' developing subjectivities in relation to experiences of emotional wellbeing, orientations to self and their social environment, and experiences of social support and help-seeking. In 2022, Giselle was awarded the George Haydu Prize for her doctoral dissertation research proposal. She is currently conducting fieldwork supported by the National Science Foundation focusing on how adolescents living with significant social challenges experience social support for their educational aspirations and future goals.
Before joining the UCSD Department of Anthropology, Giselle received her B.A. in Anthropology from UCLA, where she was a scholar in the UCLA Lemelson Anthropological Honors Program. She is an engaged member of an interdisciplinary research team conducting research on Adolescent Wellbeing in Northern Mexico (Bienestar), and on Adolescent Mental Health in Southern California.
Publications:
1. Sanchez, G., & Jenkins, J. H. (2024). Social media & subjectivity: Adolescent lived experiences with social media in a Southern California middle school. Social Science & Medicine, 348 (116839) p.1-8.2. Jenkins, J. H., Sanchez, G., Miller, E. A., Santillanes Allande, N. I., Urano, G., & Pryor, A. J. (2022). Depression and anxiety among multiethnic middle school students: Age, gender, and sociocultural environment. International journal of social psychiatry, 00207640221140282.3. Jenkins, J. H., Sanchez, G., & Lidia Olivas-Hernández, O. (2020). Loneliness, adolescence, and global mental health: Soledad and structural violence in Mexico. Transcultural psychiatry, 57(5), 673-687.
