LOREN ROTH

Dr. Loren Roth is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh as well as Senior Psychiatrist, UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital. He is the former Chief Medical Officer of UPMC (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center), also the former Associate Senior Vice Chancellor, Health Sciences at Pitt. A leading expert in the field of law and psychiatry, Dr. Roth has conducted seminal research and written extensively on the subjects of informed consent, patient dangerousness and competency, confidentiality, and ethics in research. In 1989, Dr. Roth led the US psychiatric team that investigated the political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union. Dr. Roth has worked with FGIP since its inception 42 years ago.

RICHARD BONNIE

Richard J. Bonnie is Harrison Foundation Professor of Medicine and Law and Director of the Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. He specializes in criminal law, mental health law and public health law and has authored leading casebooks in these subjects. Professor Bonnie has been involved in public service throughout his career, including appointments as Secretary for the National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse from 1976-80 and Chair of Virginia’s Commission on Mental Health Law Reform (2005-11). He has ­served as an advisor to the American Psychiatric Association since 1979, receiving the Isaac Ray Award in 1998 and presidential commendations for service to American psychiatry in 2003 and 2016. He has also served on three MacArthur Foundation research networks, including, most recently, Law and Neuroscience. Professor Bonnie was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 1991 and has chaired more than a dozen studies for the National Academies, including Pain Management and the Opioid Epidemic (2017) and The Promise of Adolescence, (2019). He received the University of Virginia’s highest honor, the Thomas Jefferson Award, in 2007. 

ELLEN MERCER

Ellen Mercer was the Director of the Office of International Affairs at the American Psychiatric Association where she worked for 25 years.  In that capacity, she established a broad network of psychiatrists around the world. She worked with many international mental health organizations, including Global Initiative in Psychiatry, the World Psychiatric Association, the World Federation for Mental Health and national psychiatric organizations around the world. Following her work at the APA, she focused on the mental health of refugees at the US Committee on Refugees.

CARMEN ANDREESCU

Carmen Andreescu is a Romanian-American psychiatrist. She graduated from Carol Davila School of Medicine and Pharmacy in Bucharest. Dr. Andreescu is currently an Associate Professor of Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. She is an expert in geriatric psychiatry, late-life anxiety and interventional psychiatry. Dr. Andreescu has been collaborating with Federation Global Initiative on Psychiatry for many years, initially on mental health reform projects in Romania, and since relocating to the US, on various international projects related to structural reforms in mental health.

ALEX DOMBROVSKI

Alex Dombrovski is the Pittsburgh Foundation Endowed Professor in Brain and Mind Research and Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh. He is an expert in geriatric psychiatry, suicide, depression and decision neuroscience. A native of Moscow, Dr. Dombrovski remembers witnessing the crumbling system of Soviet repressive psychiatry, its key actors still unrepentant – an experience that left him committed to fighting for patients’ rights. 

OLENA PROTSENKO

Olena Protsenko is a Ukrainian expert on mental health and human rights. For 4 years, she did strategic litigation of the rights of persons with mental disabilities in Ukraine. Olena has 17 successful cases in the European Court of Human Rights. In 2019, she received the Fulbright scholarship and obtained an LL.M. in international human rights law at Indiana University.Olena is currently a Post-Doctorate research associate in comparative mental health law at University of Virginia and a consultant on mental health and human rights for the World Health Organization in Ukraine. Olena joined the Board of Global Initiative in Psychiatry since 2021

ROBERT VAN VOREN

Robert van Voren is a Professor of Soviet- and Post-Soviet Studies whp has been involved in mental health issues in Eastern Europe and the former USSR for the past 45 years. He has worked in Ukraine since 1990 and is currently Chief Executive of FGIP, Professor at Vytautas Magnus University in Lithuania, Ilia State University in Georgia and Director of the Andrei Sakharov Center for Democratic Development.

TONI DUMITRIU

Toni Dumitriu is a 2022 graduate from the University of Pittsburgh with a major in Politics & Philosophy, a minor in Computer Science, and a certificate in Russian, Eastern European, and Eurasian Studies. She made the website in hopes that it would connect people in the United States to resources and information regarding mental health services for Ukrainian refugees.