Jana Javakhishvili (Co-Chair)

Jana (Darejan) Javakhishvili, PhD, is a Director of the Institute of Addiction Studies at the Ilia State University, Tbilisi, Georgia. She is a Professor of Psychology at the same university and co-founder of the Addiction Studies MA Program as well as the Mental Health MA program (with the focus on teaching Psychotraumatology). Dr. Javakhishvili specializes in working with individuals, families, groups and communities, which are traumatized as a result of military conflicts and displacement, natural disasters and terrorist attacks. They include Georgian internally displaced persons, refugees from Chechnya, Beslan tragedy survivals, war-affected populations in Ukraine, etc. Her research interests concern mental health problems (including addictions) of war- and political oppression-affected populations. She is a current president of the Georgian Society of Psychotrauma and since January 2019 – a president of the European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ESTSS).