Sewit Yohannes

Sewit Yohannes is a clinical research assistant working within all cores at the Trauma and Community Resilience Center. She graduated from the University of Michigan with a BS in Biology, Health, and Society and a BS in African and Afro-American studies. Along with extensive volunteer experience working with refugee communities, she worked to organize a Global Mental Health conference to connect those with lived experience around the world and galvanize individuals to make change in their own communities. Sewit hopes to pursue a PhD in clinical psychology and aims to collaborate with marginalized communities to co-create and adapt effective and culturally responsive interventions.

My why: As a child of immigrants, I have grown up being enraptured by my parents’ and my extended family’s stories of childhood, migration, finding community, and resilience. It is important to me to be a part of research that highlights these stories and uses them as a cornerstone in the process of creating, adapting and implementing interventions, and prioritizes working with communities to create effective and culturally relevant resources.