Sara Katherine Mourani

Sara Katherine Mourani (also known as Cara Mourani) is a Lebanese-Syrian medical graduate of the American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC). She currently serves as Chief Resident of the Clinical Neuroscience Research Unit (CNRU). Her clinical and research interests include disaster psychiatry, mental health policy reform, schizophrenia (prodromal states and first-episode psychosis), and computational neuroscience.

These interests were shaped by her direct, on-the-ground experience during Lebanon’s overlapping crises since 2019, including the October Revolution, the economic collapse, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the August 4th Beirut Port explosion. During this time, she collaborated with the Arab Reform Initiative, a Paris-based think tank, and published a scoping review of Lebanon’s mental health system, proposing policy reforms with an emphasis on disaster preparedness and system resilience. She also worked on multiple disaster psychiatry initiatives, including the development and delivery of a trauma-awareness curriculum at her medical center, as well as the co-founding of Fashit Khele’ (translation: Catharsis) a free, online group support program with a clinical psychologist to tackle the shortage of mental health professionals in the country.

She aspires to continue working on disaster-related mental health initiatives in her native Lebanon and the wider region, integrating clinical care, research, and policy reform.