April 2019

ASPIRE Spring Update by Jenny Hartmann

“As the 2018-2019 academic year comes to a close, the ASPIRE team has exciting updates to share with our community. This year has been especially active as our two research initiatives (Women ASPIRE and Providers ASPIRE) completed all data collection in Jordan and Turkey. Here are some highlights from our year! In September, we added two more people to the ASPIRE team. We welcomed second-year…” read more here

September 2018

Connect with Our Team: Luma Samawi by Luma Samawi

“Our wonderful Research Coordinator for Women ASPIRE in Jordan, Luma Samawi, is wrapping up her time with ASPIRE to begin a masters program in Global Mental Health at King's College in London (with full scholarship!). Based at the Columbia Global Center in Amman, Luma served as the focal point for Women ASPIRE for one year. We are infinitely grateful to ..." read more here

August 2018

Relief in Syria: How You Can Get Involved by Claudia Wald

"The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) reports that over half of the Syrian population has been displaced as result of the Syrian civil war[i]. The Civil War has resulted in approximately 13.5 million Syrians in need of humanitarian aid;[ii] 5.3 million of those children[iii] and 4.9 million individuals trapped in difficult to access locations..." read more here

April 2018

Women's ASPIRE Jordan Trip by Mohamad "Adam" Brooks

"Earlier this February, I was fortunate to travel to Amman, Jordan with Dr. Anindita Dasgupta and the Jordanian Women’s ASPIRE team during the pilot-phase of data collection. During our brief but busy two weeks in Jordan, we worked closely with in-country principal investigator Dr. Maysa’ Kahdra and project coordinator Luma Samawi to review collected pilot data, finalize study materials for the larger study, and finalize study..." read more here

February 2018

Providers ASPIRE in Istanbul by Drs. Uğur Tekin and Deniz Yükseker

"When the opportunity arose in Fall 2017 for us at Istanbul Aydin University to collaborate with Columbia University to carry out a study in Istanbul, we were happy about the chance to contribute to and learn from CU School of Social Work's extensive research related to refugees. The study is Providers ASPIRE, in which we will examine secondary trauma among mental health and social service providers working with..." read more here

December 2017

Connecting with Women ASPIRE By Dr. Maysa' Khadra and Research assistants

"Our goal for the Women ASPIRE study is to conduct rigorous scientific research to understand the gendered physical and mental health concerns of Syrian refugee women living in Jordan. Find below some links from our in-country principal investigator - Dr. Maysa’ Khadra, faculty at the University of Jordan School of Medicine - and our Research Assistants for the study. This videos are from July 2017 after our team..."  read more here

October 2017

Reflections from a doctoral student by Adam Brooks

"It has been six weeks since I started the PhD program at Columbia University School of Social Work (CSSW) and as a trainee in the ASPIRE project – a project led by Dr. Nabila El-Bassel & Dr. Neeraj Kaushal. During this time, I have worked alongside several master and PhD students, post-docs and faculty, attended the ASPIRE team’s regular Skype calls with Jordan and Turkey, delved into the literature on study..." read more here

September 2017

Inaugural blog post by Dr. Nabila El-Bassel and Dr. Neeraj Kaushal

"Welcome to ASPIRE’s inaugural blog post! Our blog will provide regular insights and updates from project staff on our work on refugee issues in the Middle East. Be on the lookout for posts to come.

For those of you new to ASPIRE (Advancing Solutions in Policy Implementation, Research and Engagement for Refugees), ASPIRE began with the acute need for a multifaceted..." read more here