28/05/2021
That concludes day 1 of the YMGE X Conference! We hope you all had as much as we did and we are so excited to show you more of what is in stored for tomorrow. We also wanted to highlight express gratitude for our keynote speakers today!
Athena Viscusi (she/her) is the Psychosocial Care Specialist at Doctors without Borders (MSF-USA), providing emotional support to humanitarian workers in MSF projects throughout the world. She previously directed mental health and psychosocial programs for MSF in several different countries. She has worked in previous epidemic interventions, including cholera in Haiti and Ebola in West Africa. Prior to MSF, Athena worked in the field of multicultural mental health, domestic violence, substance abuse treatment, homeless outreach, and gang intervention. Her pro bono work includes forensic examinations and evaluations for asylum applicants. Athena is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and a proud graduate of the Howard University School of Social Work.
Alli Gillespie (she/they) holds a Bachelor of Arts in Social and Cultural Analysis from New York University and is pursuing a Master of Social Work/Master of Public Health dual degree in Gender, Migration, and Humanitarian Response at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. Alli worked as the International Human Resources Associate at Doctors Without Borders (MSF-USA) prior to their current internship with MSF’s Psychosocial Care Unit. Alli’s interests include humanitarian aid policy, mental health and wellbeing, q***r liberation, and the interaction of forced displacement and gender based violence. Fun fact: Alli attended the inaugural Yale Model United Nations Institute as a high school student in the summer of 2012 and co-chaired the Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural committee at Model United Nations San Antonio in 2013!