Prof Brian Hall from the University of Macau (UM) Department of Psychology has been awarded the prestigious Presidential International Fellowship for Foreign Talents by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). This fellowship will provide Prof Hall with an honorary appointment in the CAS and the Key State Laboratory in Mental Health, in the Institute of Psychology in Beijing, along with research funding to initiate new joint collaborations in the field of traumatic stress studies in China.

Over the years, collaborations between the CAS Key State Laboratory in Mental Health and Prof Hall’s Global and Community Mental Health Research Group have led to numerous high-impact publications on traumatic stress studies in China. The research papers have appeared in various top-tier international journals. One of Prof Hall’s research studies, titled ‘The Association between Disaster Exposure and Media Use on Posttraumatic Stress Disorder following Typhoon Hato in Macao, China’, was published in the European Journal of Psychotraumatology. The paper focused on Typhoon Hato in Macao and the association between exposure to natural disasters and mental health concerns. In this study, Prof Hall’s research team screened nearly 2,000 UM students, in collaboration with the Student Affairs Office, to ascertain the prevalence and risk factors for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and to link students to treatment if indicted.

Prof Hall has outstanding achievements in health and applied psychology. He was recently appointed associate editor of the journal Applied Psychology: Health and Well-being, and was awarded the first Global Mental Health Fellowship by the World Health Organization, which was co-sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA) and the International Union of Psychological Science. The fellowship gave Prof Hall the opportunity to work on key initiatives related to the Mental Health Action Plan of the World Health Organisation, including the formulation of cultural guidelines for mental disorders in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11). Prof Hall is the recipient of the Theodore Blau Early Career Award for Outstanding Contribution to Professional Clinical Psychology, the Award for Outstanding Contribution to Trauma Psychology by an Early Career Psychologist, and the Early Career Psychologist Award for International Psychology from Divisions 12, 56 and 52 of the APA. He has also received the Chaim and Bela Danieli Young Professional Award from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, and the Young Investigator Award in Applied Science from the International Union of Psychological Science.

Recently, the work of Prof Hall and his research group was featured in the APA’s publication Monitor on Psychology, which is distributed to its 120,000 members in print and online versions. To learn more, please visit https://bit.ly/2RH4sY9

To learn more about Prof Hall’s research group, please visit www.um-gmh.com. To read the research study on PTSD related to Typhoon Hato, please visit https://bit.ly/2HskgcI

Source: Faculty of Social Sciences

Media Contact Information:Communications Office, University of Macau

Albee Lei  Tel:(853) 88228004Kelvin U  Tel:(853) 88224322Email:prs.media@um.edu.moUM Website:www.um.edu.mo