Global Mental Health Leadership

I am a physician-economist interested in the neurobiological underpinnings (“neuro-microfoundations”) of economic and health inequality.  My PhD dissertation, guided by David Cutler, Nathan Nunn and David Laibson, examined the impact of post-discharge surgical prescribing on long-term opioid use through an instrumental variables technique.  I have served on faculty of Harvard Medical School, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, and the Harvard Department of Economics, where I teach The Economics of Development and Global Health. Clinically, I am interested in severe mood disorders and suicidality, as well as in traumatic and psychotic pathologies and their links to chronic homelessness. I completed an intern year in General Surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital before moving to Psychiatry Residency.  My work has been published in the Journal of Economic Literature, the New England Journal of Medicine, and the Journal of Orthopedic Trauma. I previously served as a Consultant to the President of the World Bank under Jim Kim, as a Fulbright fellow in Malawi, and a co-editor of the textbook “Reimagining Global Health” (University of California Press, 2013) with Paul Farmer, Jim Kim and Arthur Kleinman.

Dr. Yang Jae Lee graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Magna Cum Laude double majoring in International Area Studies: Development and Biology from Washington University in St. Louis. In 2015, he developed a deep interest in the Busoga region of Uganda, where he conducted a research project on traditional medicines. Concurrently, he authored a journalism project for which he was awarded the Mark of Excellence Award from the Society of Professional Journalists for producing the best journalism nationally among students in his category. He continued engaging with the Busoga region, initiating several collaborative projects with academicians, local government, and community members on various public health interventions and development initiatives. In 2018, he founded the 501(c)3 organization Empower Through Health, where he serves as the Executive Director and Chairperson. Empower Through Health is a non-profit organization that provides medical care to a catchment area of 70,000 people and psychiatric care to a catchment area of over 400,000 people. Alongside their medical and research endeavors, they created equitable educational opportunities for both Ugandan and American pre-doctoral students, while also aspiring to establish a leading global mental health hub. Since arriving at Yale, he has concentrated on two primary research objectives: diminishing the stigma associated with mental illness; and, cultivating robust systems of care through working with existing community structures to provide effective mental healthcare in rural areas of low-income countries. Through addressing these crucial issues, he aims to make a meaningful contribution towards enhancing the overall well-being of marginalized communities.

Marcos A. Moreno was born and raised in a small community in southern Arizona known as the Pascua Yaqui Reservation. He is a member of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe through his father, and Mexican-American through his mother. He attended Cornell University for his undergraduate studies as the first from his home community to attend an Ivy League institution. While at Cornell he studied neuroscience and was involved in research examining the impact of environmental stressors on brain development and substance abuse. In addition to his interest in neuroscience, Marcos has an interest in public health and medicine for underserved populations. He was selected as one of five recipients in the country for the 2016 Udall Healthcare award for his work in underserved communities, including his medical mission trips to Africa, Latin America, and his contributions to health needs assessments for his home community. He completed his bachelor’s degree in 2017 and received Cornell’s Henry Ricciuti and Solomon Cook awards for engaged research and scholarship. He went on to attend UND-School of Medicine and Health Sciences, and after further demonstration of his commitment to underserved communities, was awarded the National Health Service Corp Medical School Scholarship by the United States Department of Health & Human Services. While in medical school, he would go on to publish addiction research with Dr. Larry Burd and the Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Center, as well as a chapter on Native American public health for the book Global Indigenous Youth: Through Their Eyes, a work co-sponsored by the United Nations and the Institute for the Study of Human Rights. As the author representing the United States, Marcos was a guest speaker at a United Nations session for the books launch in New York City in 2019. He received his Doctor of Medicine degree in 2021, and in that same year had a new chapter published, titled Bridging the Gap in the book American Indian Health Disparities in the 21st Century. Within psychiatry Marcos’ interests include addiction, child development, and health policy. Outside of psychiatry, Marcos’ enjoys good food, lifting weights, and is an avid fan of the Las Vegas Raiders football team.

Dr. Altalib is the Chief of Neurology at the Veteran Administration (VA) Connecticut Healthcare System. He also serves as the Northeast Regional Director of the VA Epilepsy Centers of Excellence. He helped established a VA Neurobehavioral clinic, which provides clinical care for Veterans who suffer from emotional distress and/or behavioral problems associated with neurological conditions (such as traumatic brain injury, stroke, and epilepsy). At Yale University he also provides care for people with neurological injury that impact emotional processing. For instance, epilepsy, traumatic brain injury, movement disorders (and their treatments) can affect brain circuits and chemistry and lead to mood, anxiety, and even psychotic disorders. Furthermore, neuropsychiatric conditions such functional movement disorder and psychogenic non-epileptic seizures are managed in his clinic. Dr. Altalib is also the Director of the Yale Epilepsy Outcomes Research Program, in which he oversees clinical trials and cohort studies related to epilepsy interventions. In addition to seizure control outcomes, his research explores psychiatric co-morbidity of neurologic disease. He is currently the primary investigator of a studies examining the neurologic substrates of depression in people with epilepsy; the burden of psychogenic non-epileptic seizures in the Veteran population; and measuring coordination of health care using social network analysis methods.

Michelle Silva is a licensed clinical psychologist and Director of the Connecticut Latino Behavioral Health System, an academic-community partnership designed to expand access to behavioral health services for the monolingual Spanish speaking community of greater New Haven. Dr. Silva’s work bridges practice, education, and clinical research, and she engages in multidisciplinary collaborations designed to promote health equity among vulnerable and underserved communities. Based at the Connecticut Mental Health Center, Dr. Silva provides clinical services to individuals affected by immigration-related trauma at the Hispanic Clinic, and treats children, adolescents, and families at the West Haven Mental Health Clinic. She serves as a supervising psychologist for fellows in the Department's Doctoral Internship in Clinical and Community Psychology, and faculty advisor to health professional students in the Behavioral Health Department of the Yale HAVEN Free Clinic.