Dr Erminia Colucci

Erminia Colucci is Senior lecturer at the Department of Psychology at Middlesex University London (UK). Prior to this, she was a lecturer and academic lead at the Centre for Psychiatry at Queen Mary University of London (UK), where she co-developed and coordinated the MSc in Creative Arts and Mental Health and lead the MSc in Transcultural Mental Healthcare and the Research Methods in Mental Health module. From 2007 till 2015, she was a Research fellow and Lecturer at the Cultural and Global Mental Health Unit, University of Melbourne where she is currently Honorary Senior Research Fellow. Her main area of research and training is in Cultural and Global Mental Health and Applied Cross-Cultural Psychology with a focus on low-middle income countries and immigrant and refugee populations. Her key interests are human rights and mental health, suicide and suicide prevention, domestic violence against women and children, child neglect/exploitation, spirituality and faith-based and spiritual/traditional healing, and first-hand stories of people with lived-experience of ‘mental illness’ and suicidal behaviour. Erminia is passionate about using arts-based and visual methods, particularly photography and ethnographic film-documentary, in her research, teaching and advocacy activities. In 2015, she was awarded the International Association for Suicide Prevention Andrej Marusic Award which is dedicated to innovative research among young researchers. She recently was also awarded a Rotary International prize for her ethnographic documentary about human rights and mental health ‘Breaking the chains’ (https://movie-ment.org/breakingthechains).