Profile
Adam Brown is Professor of Psychology at The New School for Social Reserach. He has extensive experience developing programs to promote mental health awareness, providing trainings, technical guidance, and support in the creation, implementation, and evaluation of scalable, evidence-based, culturally responsive mental health strategies that can delivered in a wide range of contexts by non-specialists.
Head of the Trauma and Global Mental Health Lab and the Global Mental Health graduate minor, Dr. Brown focuses his research on the adaptation of mental health and psychosocial interventions that can be delivered globally by non-mental health professionals, and works closely with cross-sector partners to carry out this work. Additionally, he has extensive experience in the study of traumatic stress and the identification of factors that contribute to mental health risks and resilience.
Dr. Brown is a co-founder and member of the Human Rights Resilience Project, an interdisciplinary group of scholars and practitioners carrying out research and creating tools to improve resilience and well-being in the human rights community. He has served as a consultant for organizations such as the United Nations, UNICEF, and Amnesty International. He is the recipient of grants from the National Institute of Health, USAID, Fulbright, and numerous private foundations. His work has appeared in numerous peer-reviewed journals and as book chapters.
Degrees Held
PhD 2008, New School for Social Research
MA 2004, New School for Social Research
BA 1999, University of Oregon
Professional Affiliation
Human Rights Resilience Group
Association for Psychological Science
International Society of Traumatic Stress Studies
Society of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition
Recent Publications
Pedersen, G., Pfeffer, K., Brown, A., Carswell, K., Schafer, A., Willhoite, A., & Kohrt, B. (2022). Identifying core competencies for remote delivery of psychological interventions: A rapid review. Psychiatric Services.
Kormendi, N., & Brown, A. (2021). Asian American Mental Health during COVID-19: A Call for Task-sharing Interventions. Social Science & Medicine: Mental Health.
Heyen, J.M., Weigl, N., Müller, M., Müller, S., Eberle, U., Manoliu, A.,Vetter, S., Brown, A., Berger, T., & Kleim, B. (2021). A multi-module web-based COVID-19 Anxiety and Stress Resilience Training (COAST): Single cohort feasibility study in first responders. Journal of Medical Internet Research.
Rahman, N., & Brown, A. (2021). Mental Time Travel in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Current Gaps and Future Directions. Frontiers in Psychology.
McBride, K.A., Harrison, S., Mahata, S., Pfeffer, K., Cardamone, F., Ngigi, T., Kohrt, B.A., Pedersen, G. A., Greene, M.C., Viljoen, D., Muneghina, O., & Brown, A. (2021). Adapting Problem Management Plus (PM+) during COVID-19 in New York City, Europe and East Africa. Intervention.
Paersch, C., Schulz, A., Wilhelm, F. H., Brown, A. D., & Kleim, B. (2021). Recalling Autobiographical Self-Efficacy Episodes Boosts Reappraisal-Effects on Negative Emotional Memories. Emotion.
Parnes, M., Eubank, J., Brown, A., & Boals, A. (2020). Heterogeneity in temporal self-appraisals following exposure to potentially traumatic life-events: A latent profile analysis. Journal of Affective Disorders.
Marmar, C. R., Brown, A. D., Qian, M., Laska, E., Siegel, C., Li, M., Abu-Amara, D., Tsiartas, T., Richey, C., Smith, J., Knoth, B., & Vergyri, D. (2019). Speech‐based markers for posttraumatic stress disorder in US veterans. Depression and Anxiety, 36, 607-616.
Brown, A. D., Schultebraucks, K., Qian, M., Li, M., Horesh, D., Siegel, C., Brody, Y., Amer, A., Lev-Ari, R., Mas, F., Marmar, C. R., & Farmer, J. (2020). Mental health disorders and utilization of mental healthcare services in United Nations personnel. Global Mental Health, 7
Bagrodia, R., Knuckey, S.. Satterthwaite, M., Singh Sawhney, R., & Brown, A. (2018). Crucial need to improve mental health research and training for human rights advocates. Lancet: Psychiatry.
Krans, J., Peeters, M., Näring, G., Brown, A., de Bree, J., & van Minnen, A. (2018). Examining temporal alterations in Social Anxiety Disorder and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: The relation between autobiographical memory, future goals, and current self-descriptions. Journal of Anxiety Disorders. .
Rodin, R., Bonanno, G., Rahman, N., Kouri, N., Bryant, R.A., Marmar, C., & Brown, A. (2017). Expressive flexibility in combat veterans with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Depression. Journal of Affective Disorders, 207, 236-241.
Brown, A., Kouri, N., Rahman, N., Jocelyne, A., Bryant, R., & Marmar, C. (2016). Enhancing self-efficacy improves episodic future thinking and social decision making in combat veterans with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Psychiatry Research.
Joscelyne, A., Knuckey, S., Satterthwaite, M., Li, M., Qian, M., Bryant, R.A., & Brown, A.D. (2015). Mental health functioning in the human rights field: Findings from an international internet-based survey. PLOS One.
Additional Writing
"Remembering and Forgetting in Transit: The Interplay between Physical Spaces and Memory and Identity," EuropeNow, 2021.
Can Digital Technology Support Mental Health with Equity? A New Approach to Task-Sharing in NYC in the Pandemic Era, 2021, India China Institute, Pandemic Discourse
"From the Couch to the Community: The Emergence of Peer-to-Peer Therapy for Refugees in Switzerland," EuropeNow, October 29, 2019.
"Translating Socio-Cognitive Models of Agency into Migration and Mental Health: A Framework for Individual and Community Empowerment," EuropeNow, October 29, 2019.
Performances and Appearances
Selected Media Appearance
Quoted in "Two years of COVID-19 have created a second silent pandemic – one of grief," Dallas Morning News
Featured in "Revolutionizing Care Through New Design Dialogues" Re:D, Spring 2021
Appearance on the BBC World News discussing Simone Biles’ decision to remove herself from the Tokyo Olympics
Featured in "COVID-19’s Lasting Effects on Mental Health for Good and Bad," Wall Street Journal, March 8 2021
Appearance on the BBC World News discussing mental health impacts of COVID-19 globally
Interviewed on Khan Academy about staying resilient during COVID-19, May 12, 2020
Quoted in "The Rise of PTSD," The Economist, February 24, 2020.
"Global Mental Health: Adam Brown on Psychology That Crosses Borders," Research Matters, October 22, 2018.
Research Interests
global mental health, capacity building, implementation science, scalable interventions, digital tools, forced displacement, emergency and humanitarian responses, trauma, resilience, memory
Awards And Honors
Fulbright Specialist Scholar, University of Bahamas-North, 2022 (read New School News coverage)
Fulbright Specialist Scholar, University of Bern, 2017 & 2018
Fulbright Senior Scholar, University of New South Wales, 2010