International Health Humanities Network Membership

Ms Arya S is a Ph.D. graduate student in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, India. Her areas of research interest are health humanities, graphic medicine, graphic mental illness narratives and Mad Studies.

Lecturer in Medicine, Registered Nurse, Painter.

I am a literary historian based in Hungary. My research is focussed on the literature of the holocaust. Lately I became interested in Medical Humanities, especially in the connection between dementia and the arts. My interest is not only academic but also deeply personal.

Art-Health practitioner from Singapore. Currently based in Durham.

Past art-health projects includes creative art workshop for Parkinson's Support Group for Singapore General Hospital, Artist mentor for Dreamcatcher project 2012 for support group for youth with chronic illness at National University Hospital, Creative clay workshop for Singapore Parkinson Disease Society, Established "Arts for Us" 2012 and developed and facilitate exploratory pilot art program from resident in residential care. 

PhD candidate (Durham University, UK)

M.A. Photography and Urban Culture (Goldsmiths College, UK)

BFA (School of the Art Institute of Chicago)

Michael Tan, a Singaporean artist, educator and researcher. As a leading advocate for arts & design for health development in Singapore, my research interest explores art and design practices in relation to health & Well-being, care, ageing, and human flourishing. Inspired by assemblage theory, I am interested to explore on the role of creative practice in shaping culture of care in various care settings and the wider context of medical/ health humanities and health communication.

I recently joined Lab4Living at Sheffield Hallam University, UK as a Reader in Art and Design and will be contributing to the lab’s ongoing work on the 100 Year Life & the Future Home as well as mentoring PhDs.  My ongoing collaborations include: The Repository for Arts and Health Resources project led by Sidney De Haan Research Centre for Arts and Health, Canterbury Christ Church University;  The A-health Project (Mcgill University- Nanyang Technological University); Art in Dermatology Education (Duke-NUS). I keen to explore collaboration or supervise projects related, but not limited to the following lines of inquiry:

·       The Future of Care and wellbeing

·       Wonderment and Wellbeing

·       Therapeutic engagements/ experience (e.g. technology-inspired participatory)

·       Therapeutic Objects

·       Communicating Health

As a leading advocate for arts and health development in Singapore, he has been active in promoting awareness for arts and health among stakeholders in the fields of arts, health and social care, while developing and conducting art-health program in various care settings in Singapore such as the Singapore General Hospital, The National University Hospital and the Singapore Parkinson’s society. He has served as a member of the art advisory committee at Ng Teng Fong Hospital, to advise on art for health programming. He has also served as review of grants. He is also the current Country representative (Singapore) for the Arts Health Early Career Research Network. His recent work includes collaboration with the Agency or Integrated Care to develop the Arts, Ageing and Wellbeing Toolkit with students from the MSc in Applied Gerontology programme (NTU), as well as the first every art residency programme in Singapore alongside the Sparks! Art for Wellness toolkit.

I am currently a PhD researcher at the University of Sheffield and my research interests lie at the intersections of culture, music, and health. I am also a music therapist and have worked in medical, special education, and mental health settings. 

Jennifer Frank Tantia is a Dance/movement Therapist and somatic psychotherapist in New York City. She serves as a research advisor at Pratt Institute and teaches developmental and somatic psychology at Adelphi University. Former Program Director of the NY state chapter of the American Dance Therapy Association, she currently serves as Research Chair for the United States Association for Body Psychotherapy and is the US representative for the Scientific Committee of the Eurpoean Association of Body Psychotherapy.

Jennifer works in private practice and leads Authentic Movement groups while completing her doctorate in Somatic Psychology at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. Her research on Authentic Movement and the Autonomic Nervous System has been published and presented in the US and Europe. Jennifer's current research and academic interests include teaching embodiment practices to nurses and medical school students for the prevention of burnout and increased quality of care to patients.

Tuba Tasneem is a English literature graduate from the The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, India. She has worked as an assistant professor and currently working as a content writer. She is looking for doctoral research opportunites in medical humanities. Bedevilled by the issues prevailing in our society, she believes reading and writing can change the world, both of which she does ferociously. To find her you’d have to read the books she read as she has made a home in them. 

Yugin Teo is Lecturer in English and Communication at Bournemouth University. His research interests are in the representation of memory, trauma and nostalgia in literature and film, science fiction, literature and philosophy, contemporary fiction, and the work of Paul Ricoeur. He has published journal articles on memory, nostalgia and representations of dementia in film in Science Fiction Film and Television, Critique and Medical Humanities. His first monograph Kazuo Ishiguro and Memory was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2014.

Christy Tharenos, MD, MSPH is a practicing academic family physician who is passionate about incorporating arts and humanities into her work. She is a former fellow at Georgetown University in Medical Arts and Humanities. She is passionate about using arts based research both on a formal and informal basis in her teaching and practice. She has worked internationally in Uganda and Mexico using Photovoice as a research methodology to explore concepts of physical activity with youth. She also has used the concepts digital self portraits to explore resident physician experiences and perspectives as new doctors. Her background in the arts is centered in the visual arts and computer graphics.