Speech title:
Culture vultures and other creatures: Navigating cultural validity in the global psychological landscape

Dr Katija Khan is a Clinical Psychologist and Neuropsychologist,  Lecturer at the Faculty of Medical Sciences, UWI and a member of the UWI COVID-19 Task Force. She is an executive council member of the Caribbean Alliance of National Psychological Associations and a past President of the Trinidad and Tobago Association of Psychologists.

Dr Khan received undergraduate and postgraduate training in Psychology at the University of the West Indies St Augustine and Mona Campuses and pursued PhD and postdoctoral training at the University of Hull and University of Sheffield in England.

For the past 20 years, Dr Khan has been a passionate lecturer, researcher, clinician and public advocate, promoting mental health and wellbeing across the Caribbean. She provides consultant psychology services for the TT Children’s Authority, Medical Research Foundation, North Central Regional Health Authority and University of Guyana. In Guyana she has also worked with PRAGMATIS, UNICEF, the Ministry of Social Protection and the Guyana Judiciary to provide services related to the assessment of juvenile offending, forensic interviewing and training in forensic psychology and sexual offences.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, she has worked with various stakeholders (including CARICOM, PAHO, Trinidad and Tobago Ministry of Health, Trinidad and Tobago Police Service Victim and Witness Support Unit, Trinidad and Tobago Medical Association, Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Rotaract) to promote stress management, psychological coping and wellbeing.