FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (January 2007)

Contact: Kelsey Johnson, Communications Specialist, 979-862-4990 or kelsey_johnson@tamu.edu

National Institute of Mental Health Selects Dr. Stough as a Fellow in the Disaster Mental Health Research Mentoring Program

COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS – Dr. Laura Stough, interdisciplinary training coordinator at the Center on Disability and Development, has been selected a Fellow in the Disaster Mental Health Research Mentoring Program funded by the National Institute of Mental Health.

"My particular interest is in how these individuals [with disabilities, cognitive impairments and mental illness] are best assisted so that they are able to successfully live in and reconnect to their communities," Stough says.

The program seeks to increase the quality and utility of disaster research by informing, instructing, advising and mentoring disaster researchers. As part of this program, experienced researchers who show interest in and aptitude for careers in disaster mental health research are connected to mentors selected from a nationwide faculty already established in the area of disaster research.

Stough will be working with Carol North, professor of psychiatry from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, on a longitudinal study of 543 individuals exposed to a series of natural and environmental disasters in the Midwest.

For more information, contact Dr. Stough at 979-845-8257 or lstough@coe.tamu.edu.

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