Executive Director

Suzan J. Song MD, MPH, PhD

Suzan J. Song, MD, MPH, PhD is Director of Child & Family Mental Health at Harvard’s Boston Children’s Hospital and Professor of Psychiatry at George Washington University. She has dedicated her career to serving children and families suffering in silence.

Dr. Song is also a humanitarian protection adviser for youth and families of forced migration globally with UNHCR, UNICEF, and the International Medical Corps, and technical adviser to multiple domestic refugee and survivor of torture programs, including the International Rescue Committee. Her two decades of global mental health work span Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ethiopia, KwaZulu/Natal, Haiti, Burundi, Syria/Jordan, and the DR Congo.

Dr. Song is double board-certified in adult and child/adolescent psychiatry, with training from the University of Chicago, Harvard, and Stanford. Prior to GW, she worked in the S.F. Bay Area as medical director of two community-based clinics - a foster care clinic and an immigrant/refugee health clinic. Her PhD from the University of Amsterdam focused on intergenerational stress and local ways of healing for former child soldiers and survivors of torture. Her current work focuses on youth and family resiliency and stress. She is also a Distinguished Fellow of the American Academy of Child/Adolescent Psychiatrists, and former President of the Northern California Region of Child/Adolescent Psychiatrists. As well, she is nationally recognized as a subject matter expert in child trafficking, having advised U.S. Departments of Health & Human Services, State Dept, Dept of Defense, Dept of Justice and has testified as expert witness before the U.S. Congress.

Dr. Song is internationally recognized for her clinical, policy, and research work with youth and families of forced migration, armed conflict, and child trafficking. She has been interviewed by National Public Radio, Public Radio International, Huffington Post, New York Times, and the Intercept. Her book, Child, Adolescent & Family Refugee Mental Health: A Global Perspective, was co-edited with the senior mental health adviser of UNHCR and she is working on a new book on managing instability with Penguin Random House.