Affiliate Assistant Professor
Gesa Duden
Horizon Fellow
She/Her
Gesa completed her PhD, “Mental Health Support for Refugees – Integrating Brazilian Perspectives,” at Osnabrück University in Germany in collaboration with the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina in Brazil. She holds an M.Sc. in Intercultural Psychology from Osnabrück University and a B.A. in Psychology from University College Dublin, Ireland.
Her research explores how culture—our collective understanding of the world—shapes individual experience. Positioned at the intersection of cultural psychology, clinical psychology, and urban planning, Gesa’s work focuses on urban stressors, integrative spaces, and restorative environments for migrants. She is particularly interested in migrants’ experiences of belonging and how culture and urban spaces contribute to fostering this sense of connection.
Gesa has worked as a mental health practitioner supporting migrants, refugees, and survivors of torture in Germany and Brazil. A lifelong dancer, she has taught partner and contemporary dance and is now immersing herself in Montréal’s vibrant Blues, Forró, and Fusion dance scenes.
Master’s student
Antonina Yakobson
She/Her
Antonina obtained her B.Sc. from McGill University in 2023. She was born in Russia, but moved to Montreal at a young age, and has grown up here since. She joined the Culture, Health, and Personality lab as a volunteer in 2023, and now as a graduate student in 2025. She has always been interested in mental health in immigrant communities, which is what she plans to explore at Concordia, both clinically and through research. Specifically, she is hoping to use a mixed-methods approach to examine social experiences and networks of Eastern European immigrant populations in Montreal, and how they impact their mental health and adaptation to life in Canada. Clinically, her wish is to improve accessible psychological treatment and address communal mental health issues through different types of services. Antonina also loves language, including learning different languages and their linguistic properties. Living in Montreal, you hear ten different languages when you walk down the street, and that, to her, is the beauty of the city. Outside of academics, Antonina enjoys camping (sitting by a fire in the forest), art, and trying out different teas and coffees from around the world.
Doctoral students
Mariana Borges
She/Her
Mariana is a Brazilian clinical psychologist, researcher, and artist. She obtained her M.A. in Clinical Psychology and Culture from Universidade de Brasilia in 2016 and spent the last five years in Brazil exploring her diverse interests in theatrical arts, psychotherapy, and hypnosis. This trajectory includes working in private practice as a psychotherapist, an unfinished B.A. in Theatre Arts (Universidade de Brasilia), the publication of a book on the uses of humor in psychotherapy, the participation as an actress and researcher of an international art project of Coletiva Teatro (Universidade de Brasilia/Stanford University), the teaching and supervision of students at hypnosis and brief psychotherapy training program, as well as the creation and contribution to a Brazilian meditation podcast to aid people during COVID-19 pandemic (“Grupo Crescer”). In 2020 Mariana “accidentally” stumbled on the Culture, Health and Personality Lab when looking for a Ph.D. program in which she could develop her interests in the intersections between culture, art, and mental health. She is especially interested in the human proneness to storytelling and the potential power of stories in facilitating culturally-mindful assessments and interventions. Mariana is very family-driven and enjoys spending time with her husband and their dog doing basically anything. Wherever they are: there is home.
Noura Al Bistami
She/Her
Noura is a Lebanese-Canadian neuroscientist who completed her M.Sc. in Neuroscience from King’s College London and her B.A. in Psychology from the American University of Beirut. After working as a neuroscience research associate examining neurodegeneration using stem cell modeling, effectively gaining valuable research experience and learning more about the brain structurally and functionally, she chose to pursue clinical psychology. Specifically, she looked into research that tackled culture, psychology, and politics, and the interplay of all three. This was fueled by 1) experiencing socio-economic and political conflicts in Beirut and the Levant region, 2) wanting to go beyond cellular models of the brain and incorporate psychosocial factors, and 3) realizing the significant gap in non-Western psychosocial research and services. Noura joined the Culture, Health, and Personality Lab as a volunteer before moving to Montreal to pursue a PhD in Psychology, and aims to explore the mental health of Arab Levantine immigrants in Montreal, intergenerational trauma, and contribute to the ever-growing field of cultural-clinical psychology to better help under-represented populations.
Noura is passionate about coffee (yes, even decaf), good films, music, her two cats, third spaces, thrifting, and spreading awareness about health and social injustices.
Catie Jeon
She/Her
Catie Ajin Jeon is an art therapist and artist based in Montreal. She is hoping to pursue a Ph.D. in Cultural-Clinical Psychology in the near future. Catie completed her B.A. in Psychology at McGill University, and recently graduated from Concordia University with an M.A. in Art Therapy. Catie completed her internships at the Centre for Arts in Human Development and McGill University’s Student Wellness Hub, working as a therapist with adults with developmental disabilities and McGill University’s student population, respectively. In the last year of her M.A. degree, she served as the president of the Creative Arts Therapies Students of Colour Association (CATSOCA), organizing a multi-session speaker conference in partnership with the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. The series invited BIPOC mental health professionals from various locations and institutions such as Beirut, Lebanon and NYU, among others, to discuss topics and issues regarding culture and racial politics in mental health fields. In combining her passion for research in mental health with her interests in cultural diversity, Catie is hoping to soon pursue a Ph.D. in Cultural-Clinical Psychology. She has a particular interest in further understanding the interaction between culture and mental health within immigrant populations, with a focus on Korean immigrant groups. As an artist, Catie works primarily with watercolours. She specializes in creating watercolour dog portraits and illustrating children’s books.
Jude Nachabe
She/Her
Jude obtained her B.A. (Hons) in Psychology from the University of Ottawa before moving to Montreal in 2019 to pursue graduate training in Clinical Psychology at Concordia University. She completed her M.A. in Clinical Psychology in the summer of 2021 and subsequently joined the Culture, Health, and Personality Lab as a doctoral student.
As a Levantine-Canadian herself, Jude has long been interested in the intersection of culture and mental health. Her own experiences navigating her cultural identity and her passion for mental health advocacy drew her to the lab. Jude’s doctoral research focuses on depression beliefs among Levantine-Canadians, using a mixed-method design grounded in Cultural Consensus Theory, also known as Cultural Consensus Analysis (CCA). More broadly, she is interested in cultural-clinical psychology and aims to inform assessment and interventions for cultural minority populations.
Clinically, Jude works with adults and has been trained in culturally sensitive psychotherapy and psychological assessment. She is also deeply engaged in equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) initiatives, contributing to committees at Concordia as well as in the broader community. Outside of her academic and clinical work, she enjoys traveling, advocating for social and political justice, dancing, baking, and spending time with friends.
Doctoral candidates
Jiahong Sun
She/Her
Jiahong Sun obtained her B.A. from McGill University in 2009. She joined the Culture, Health, and Personality lab as a research coordinator and later as a graduate student in 2011. Jiahong is now a Ph.D. candidate in Clinical Psychology at Concordia University. Her overarching interest is in the area of culture and mental health, with a particular curiosity toward the cultural shaping of the experience, communication and treatment of emotional distress. Jiahong’s doctoral dissertation examines the impact of rapid sociocultural change on depression in China, with a focus on the expression of and explanatory beliefs about depression.
Jiahong completed a one-year CPA accredited pre-doctoral internship in Saskatoon in 2019. She currently works as a part-time clinician in supervised-practice in Vancouver while finishing her dissertation. Outside of her work, Jiahong enjoys spending time with her family and friends, exploring the beautiful coastal city and planning her next adventure.
Jie Chang
She/Her
Jie completed her B.Sc. at the University of Toronto Scarborough, majoring in neuroscience and mental health studies. She stumbled upon the field of cultural psychology during her undergraduate studies, and became fascinated by it. She moved to Montreal to pursue her interest and is currently in her sixth year of Doctoral studies in the Clinical Psychology program at Concordia University. Jie’s Masters research with the Culture, Health and Personality Lab analyzed qualitative reports of alexithymia in a group of Chinese psychiatric outpatients. She is currently completing her doctoral dissertation, which examines the cultural differences in attention to emotions in Canadian and Chinese-heritage individuals using a mixed-methods approach. Jie completed her clinical internship in clinical neuropsychology at Hamilton Health Sciences. She is interested in promoting Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in her local, reachable surroundings and in her clinical work. Outside of her studies, Jie has equal love for both double-doubles and bubble tea, although she favours double-doubles more during the roll-up season.
Cultural-Clinical Psychology 