Dr Siqi Xue
Mentee
Dr Siqi Xue is a psychiatrist and associate scientist with the General Adult Psychiatry and Health Systems Division at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and an assistant professor at the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto.
Dr Xue completed her medical and psychiatry residency training at the University of Toronto. She completed a Master of Science degree in Global Mental Health jointly from King's College London and The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) as a Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada Detweiler Travelling Fellow.
Dr Xue’s academic interests include upstream, structural, and ecological determinants of mental health, global mental health, and women’s mental health, and has contributed to several international initiatives on global mental health and climate change, including projects with the World Health Organization, Connecting Climate Minds, and Lancet Psychiatry Commissions.
👥
Mentors: Judy Bass (John Hopkins University, USA), Dixon Chibanda (Friendship Bench, Zimbabwe and LSTM, UK), Claire Greene (Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, USA)
Dr Mutshidzi Mulondo
Mentee
Dr Mutshidzi Mulondo is an award-winning Global Health Academic and Science Diplomat passionate about mental health advocacy. She was part of the team that established the first Division of Public Health at University of the Free State, South Africa.
She made history twice in her institution, as the first to complete an interdisciplinary PhD in Health Professions Education and Community Health; she was also the first to be accepted to the prestigious Global Young Academy – a network institution of the United Nations Scientific Advisory Board. She is a recipient of the Zenith Global Health Award (Mental Health & Wellbeing).
She is a member of UNESCO’s Women in Science and the South African Young Academy of Science (SAYAS).
A strategist and advisor, she contributes to South Africa’s National System of Innovation and multilateral platforms providing evidence-based knowledge to advance equity and sustainable development.
A former visiting scholar at Appalachian State University (USA) and Council Member in the Golden Key International Honor Society where she oversees 25 academic chapters in South Africa.
She is a recipient of the Zenith Global Health Award, South African Health Excellence Award, Young Science Diplomat Award and Leadership Luminary Award, among others. She is a proponent of “Leave no-one behind”, for an equitable and inclusive future.
👥
Mentors: Inge Petersen (University of Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa) and Noah Triplett (University of Maryland, USA)
Dr Sreekanth Thekkumkara
Mentee
Dr Sreekanth Thekkumkara is an early-career global mental health researcher, educator, and mental health social worker based at the Division of Health Sciences of the Faculty of Health, University of Dundee, United Kingdom.
His work sits at the intersection of mental health, social inequalities, and health systems, strongly focusing on developing and implementing scalable, low-cost psychosocial interventions for underserved populations across low- and middle-income countries.
He obtained his MPhil and PhD in Psychiatric Social Work from the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), India, where he led the development and feasibility testing of a peer support intervention for prisoners with co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders.
His research program integrates implementation science, behavioural change frameworks, psychosocial theories, and social network analysis to address complex mental health challenges in resource-constrained settings.
Sreekanth is engaged in multi-country research collaborations spanning Europe, South Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa. He currently leads global mental health research initiatives and contributes to large-scale grant applications focused on decolonised mental health care.
Alongside his research, he teaches and supervises across undergraduate, postgraduate, and doctoral levels, and contributes to academic leadership and policy engagement in mental health.
He also serves as a peer reviewer for several international journals and participates in global efforts to advance equitable, evidence-informed mental health care.
👥
Mentors: Rahul Shidaye (Public Health Foundation of India, India) and David Ndetei (African Mental Health Foundation, Kenya)
Dr Marina A. Fernández
Mentee
Dr Marina A. Fernández is a researcher and PhD in Psychology based in Argentina. With over a decade of experience, her work focuses on quality of care in mental health.
For the past ten years, she has specialized in prevention and teaching and learning, areas she is deeply passionate about.
Marina is an active member of the Red de Investigaciones en Salud Mental.
👥
Mentors: Petr Winkler (European Alliance Against Depression; Uniklinik Frankfurt, Goethe University) and Nino Makhashvili (Ilia State University, Georgia)