Visiting Scholars

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Namhee Choi

Namhee Choi, Ph.d., RN. is a professor at Seoul Women’s College of Nursing in South Korea, and now she is in Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing as a visiting professor.  She has been teaching psychiatric mental health, nursing theory, and development and philosophy of nursing over 30 years.   She wrote a lot of academic essays and gave oral presentations at academic symposiums and forums, and received various research grants from national research foundation and governmental agency of Korea.

Her main interests are human life and narrative.   Especially, she has given a great deal of attention to transformative processing of way of life.   She has more than 20 years experience in studying and practicing for traumatized people to rebuild their distorted life by means of narrative reprocessing.

She is a main founder and the executive director of Seoul Institute for Narrative Studies (SINAS), a non-profit foundation for research and practice with narratives. She developed a narrative reprocessing method of working for people suffering from traumas.  As a result, a lot of scholars in Korea have received varied types of help from her, that is, training and exercise on narrative analysis, narrative reprocessing method, narrative research and hermeneutical dialogue, and so on.

Relating to her activities, Dr. Choi has been awarded a Civil Merit Medal from the President of Korea.  She had a leading role in shaping national policy for disaster victims and survivors in Korea.  For this reason, she received a gratitude plaque from the director of national emergency management of Korean Government.

Dr. Choi received BS in nursing from School of Nursing, Seoul National University and Master in public health from graduate school of public health, Seoul National University and Ph. d. in nursing from school of nursing, Yonsei University.

She is currently a vice president of Korean Association on Crisis and Disaster Management, the sector head of psychological counseling at Gyeonggi-do Province Branch of National Criminal Support Center.  And aditionally, she is a member the following organizations: Korean Society of Nursing Science, Korean Academic Society of Mental Health, Korean Academic Society of Phenomenology, and Korean Association of Mental Health Professionals.

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Daliah Heller

Former NYC Assistant Commissioner Daliah Heller, PhD, MPH, joins the Center for Health Media and Policy (CHMP) at Hunter College this year as a Senior Fellow. Over the next year, she will be working to identify and promote opportunities for mainstreaming substance use services in health care and public health systems.

Over the year, Dr. Heller’s work will involve two main activities. First, she will be interviewing and organizing doctors and nurses from around the country to build support for integrating substance use into health care systems and improving drug and alcohol policies. Second, she will be exploring and advocating health policy approaches for substance use services.

Heller sees this work as crucial for helping people with problem drug and alcohol use. “The negative health and social consequences of drug use can be devastating for individuals, families, and communities. To change this, we must shift from treating it as a criminal problem to recognizing it as a health and public health issue that can be prevented and managed.”

Daliah Heller has worked at the intersection of public health and substance use for the past fifteen years in New York City. Her work spans leadership roles in both the governmental and not-for-profit sectors, and includes developing and managing community-based programs, conducting epidemiologic research and program evaluation, implementing system-wide initiatives, and analyzing and advancing public policy. Most recently, until November 2011, she served four years as an Assistant Commissioner at the New York City Health Department, responsible for the Bureau of Alcohol and Drug Use Prevention, Care, and Treatment.