Speakers: Eileen Anderson EdD & Andrew Ryder PhD

Facilitators: Mandy Wu, Anna Fiskin, Kenneth Fung

Learning Objectives

1. Explore the speakers’ career development paths in the field of Cultural Psychology

2. Discuss clinical work, teaching, research and advocacy pathways in Cultural Psychology

3. Discuss areas of collaboration between Cultural Psychology and Cultural Psychiatry

About the Speakers:

Eileen P. Anderson is the Anne Templeton Zimmerman, M.D. professor of Bioethics and Director of Education in Bioethics and Medical Humanities in the School of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU). She also serves as faculty on the Judicial College of the Supreme Court of Ohio. Dr. Anderson founded the Center for Medicine Society and Culture at CWRU and educational specialization with the same name to give students a broader understanding of the many non-biological factors that not only affect well-being itself, but also our disparate understandings of what conditions constitute health, illness and healing. These programs, along with her research in medical and psychological anthropology, reflect a long-held belief in the power of interdisciplinary approaches to provide valuable insights about some of the world’s most challenging questions about human health and wellbeing. Her own research focuses on how adolescents and young adults adapt to changes in their environments in ways that both advance and harm their physical and mental health - and how institutions can best support them. An award-winning teacher and mentor, Anderson earned her bachelor’s degree at Brown University and her master’s and doctorate at Harvard University. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in interdisciplinary studies of culture and neuroscience at UCLA.

Andrew Ryder is a licensed clinical psychologist in Québec and Professor in the Department of Psychology at Concordia University in Montréal, where he directs the Culture, Health, and Personality Lab. He is also an affiliated researcher at the Jewish General Hospital and adjunct professor in the Department of Psychiatry at McGill University. Dr. Ryder's research is situated at the intersection of clinical psychology and cultural psychology, with a strong influence from cultural psychiatry. His research takes place along two axes. The first axis involves the study of how cultural context shapes emotions and emotional disorders, with an emphasis on East Asian societies: China, Korea, and Japan. Specific research questions centre on somatic versus psychological symptom presentations. The second axis involves the study of the acculturation process and its relation to psychosocial adjustment. A major theme in this research is the development of acculturation measurement tools to study the person-in-context. Since 2011, he has been involved in theoretical, empirical, and organizational work to help develop the field of Cultural-Clinical Psychology.