Mary Bunn

Dr. Mary Bunn, PhD, LCSW, is a licensed clinical social worker and Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), Department of Psychiatry. She is also Core Faculty and Director of the Global Mental Health Research and Training Program in the UIC Centre for Global Health and runs a therapy clinic for refugees and asylum seekers at the UI Health. Informed by more than twenty years of licensed clinical practice experience delivering therapy services and developing mental health programs domestically and globally, her research focuses on the development and testing of community-based mental health prevention and care interventions for survivors of war and political violence across the migration continuum. This involves working collaboratively with practitioners, policymakers and people with lived experience to develop a spectrum of services that improve mental health and strengthen families and social systems of care and connection. She is particularly interested in peer service models, family and group-based interventions and examining relational processes and factors in interventions. She is currently leading a NIMH-funded study to develop and test a peer-led family and social strengthening group intervention for refugee families from the Middle East. Dr. Bunn is also leading a project to develop family-based services for torture-affected families and survivors of torture programs in the U.S. In collaboration with the International Rescue Committee, she is also co-leading a project to develop and implement an expanded and integrated mental health and psychosocial support services framework to guide practice, funding and policy concerning forcibly displaced populations domestically.