Dr. Sara Mourani

Biography

Sara Katherine Mourani, a Lebanese-Syrian medical graduate from the American University of Beirut Medical Center, is currently serving as Chief Resident at the Clinical Neuroscience Research Unit. Her clinical research interests encompass disaster psychiatry, mental health policy reform, schizophrenia, including prodromal stages and first-episode psychosis, and computational neuroscience. These interests have been significantly influenced by her direct, on-the-ground experience with Lebanon’s crises, including the 2019 October Revolution, the economic collapse, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Beirut Port explosion on August 4th. During this time, she collaborated with the Arab Reform Initiative, a Paris-based think tank, where she published a scoping review of Lebanon’s mental health system, proposing policy reforms with an emphasis on disaster preparedness and system resilience. Additionally, she has worked on various disaster psychiatry initiatives, including the development and delivery of a trauma-awareness curriculum for medical center staff and co-founding Fashit Khele’ (translation: Catharsis), a free online group support program aimed at addressing the shortage of mental health professionals in the country. Sara aspires to continue her work in disaster-related mental health initiatives in her native Lebanon and the wider region, integrating clinical care, research, and policy reform.

Research Interests