MENTAL HEALTH & WELLBEING COMMITTEE
Mental Health & Wellbeing Committee Chair: Jazib Uddin (jnu4001@med.cornell.edu).
The PDA Mental Health & Wellbeing Committee was established in 2020 to support post-doctoral scientists whilst completing their research at Weill Cornell Medicine. The committee seeks to disseminate knowledge about existing services and programs available to post-doctoral scientists at Weill Cornell Medicine, as well as develop internal insights into the unique challenges faced by post-doctoral scientists specifically across the Tri-Institutional campus in New York City.
A critical aim of this committee is to establish a “Mental Health & Wellbeing Think Tank'' to develop a white paper report on the wellbeing of post-doctoral scientists at Weill Cornell Medicine. This report will seek to provide a breviloquent report that will outline and inform the Weill Cornell community, including leadership, of unique challenges encountered by postdoctoral scientists. It is hoped that this Think Tank and its report(s) will provide not just a contemporary update on the wellbeing of our scientists, but also provide recommendations on how to improve the welfare of our community during our seminal years of postdoctoral training.
If you would like to join our Mental Health & Wellbeing Committee, or its Think Tank panel, please email the committee chair or the PDA board for more information.
Note from former Committee Chair Michael:
“We need to get serious about recognizing and acting on the growing rates of mental health afflictions in not just in academia but also the broader communities of which we are part of. As a neuroscientist who works on the biological mechanisms of mental disorders, my day-to-day life has been staying atop of the latest research on mental wellbeing and advancing this knowledge within the laboratory. However, I could never shake the feeling that my commitment to working on mental health should end at the laboratory bench. As such, I founded and chaired the Mental Wellbeing Committee and the “Mental Health & Wellbeing Think Tank '' at Weill Cornell Medicine to serve as a platform that can advocate for the mental wellbeing of our large postdoctoral community here at the college. This approach has allowed us to design and conduct studies within our community to deliver data-driven insight to the Dean and other College Leadership, who have suitably supported and worked with us to promote the wellbeing of the ~500 postdoctoral scientists employed by Weill Cornell Medicine. Being able to watch this initiative grow from an idea to a community of almost 20 contributors (from both WCMC and industry) has been amongst the most rewarding experiences I have experienced in my scientific career.”