Tahilia Rebello, PhD

Dr. Tahilia Rebello is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. She also works jointly on the staffs of the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Research and Training in Global Mental Health at Columbia University, as Research Program Manager, and the WHO, in the capacity of Project Coordinator for the Global Clinical Practice Network – an international network of over 10,000 health professionals established as part of the development of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11). Dr. Rebello also provides scientific and logistical support to the Tohoku Theater Project, an initiative that uses theater as a means of broaching post-disaster mental health concerns and stigma among survivors of the 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster in Japan. Dr. Rebello holds a BSc in Physiology, from McGill University. She is trained as a neuroscientist, and completed her doctoral work in the field of developmental psychobiology and pharmacology at Columbia University. Her research focused on understanding the way in which early-life events, specifically those that impact the levels of serotonin in the brain, affect the development of brain regions implicated in anxiety and depression. Her transition from the basic sciences to population-level mental health, included an internship with WHO’s Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse, where she contributed to the 2011 Mental Health Atlas Project and suicide prevention initiatives. Dr. Rebello also established and served as Program Director for the health education division for a non-profit clinic in NYC, directed several women’s health initiatives and advocacy campaigns as part of the V-Day Movement, and developed and taught a foundational course for undergraduates, on the biology of affective disorders, at Columbia Medical Center.