I am a full Professor at Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour and Radboud

Frank Kayitare is the Interpeace Country Representative. He has 10+ years’ experience in international development and democracy support field; and has contributed to policy reform processes in more than 15 African countries as well as to programme development and/or in-country technical assistance in Haiti, Nepal, the Netherlands and Sweden. In his current position, he is committed to supporting the Rwandan society in rebuilding their mental and socioeconomic resilience as well as strengthening social cohesion and reconciliation.

Isabelle Blanchette is a full professor at Université Laval (Canada), researcher at the Cervo Brain Research Center and director of the Observatoire Psycavi. She obtained her PhD from McGill University in 2000. She was a postdoctoral researcher at Birkbeck College, University of London. Before Université Laval, she was a faculty member at the University of Manchester (United Kingdom) and Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (Canada).

Professor Blanchette’s work examines the neurocognitive correlates of emotion and trauma. Her research program combines experimental approaches with studies of real-world traumatic experiences, in particular sexual abuse, war and mass violence. Her research shows that emotion and trauma have a significant impact on cognitive processes such as attention, reasoning, and working memory. She has published over 90 articles in international journals and is the author of the book Emotion and Reasoning (Routledge). She is on the editorial board of Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research and Practice. Her work has been funded by major research councils in Canada and the UK (ERSC, BBSRC, British Academy, SSHRC, FRQS, NSERC, FRQNT).

Isabelle Blanchette is the founder and director of Observatoire Psycavi, an international research partnership documenting the psychological consequences of intergroup violence and armed conflicts in the African Great Lakes region (Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo). She is also a founding member of AfriBCD, a network aiming to catalyze neurocognitive research in Africa.

Prof. Mutesa, is an MD, PhD and full professor of human genetics, currently working as Director of Center for Human Genetics that he created in 2006 at the College of Medicine and Health Sciences-University of Rwanda. He obtained his MD from the university of Rwanda in 2003 and his PhD in 2009 from the university of Liege-Belgium where he also completed his post-doc in 2011. Throughout his career he has been immensely involved in clinical services, academics, research, capacity building, and management in the health sector. He served as the Director of Department of Clinical Laboratory Dept. at the Kigali University Teaching hospital, which is the largest referral hospital. He has been Director General of Medical Research Center in Rwanda Biomedical Centre under Ministry of Health, where he coordinated health related research activities in all national medical institutions. He developed several research policies within the health sector and founded the Rwanda health research commission which reviews research grants and studies before approval by Rwanda National Ethics Committee. Prof Mutesa serves as PI of NIH/H3Africa grant–National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)-Transgenerational Epigenomics of Trauma and PTSD in Rwanda (U01MH115485) with aim to characterize the transgenerational transmission of epigenomic impact of genocide exposure and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in women survivors of the Rwandan genocide and their offspring.

Sarah Lowe, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and Associate Professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Yale School of Public Health, with secondary appointments in the Department of Psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine and Yale School of Nursing. Her research focuses on the long-term mental health consequences of a range of potentially traumatic events, as well as the impact of such events on other domains of functioning, such as physical health, social relationships, and economic wellbeing. Her work explores the mechanisms leading from trauma exposure to symptoms, and the role of factors at various ecological levels – from genetics to neighborhoods – in shaping risk and resilience. She uses a range of methodologies to achieve her research aims, including structural equation modeling, latent growth curve analysis, geospatial modeling, and qualitative analysis, among others. Dr. Lowe received her Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts Boston and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Psychiatric Epidemiology Training program at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.