Eugene F. Augusterfer, LCSW, is Deputy Director and Director of Telemedicine at the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma and the Harvard Global Mental Health Program
As a senior faculty member of the Harvard Global Mental Health Team, he has focused on design and development of sustainable mental healthcare through the use of telemedicine.
He is a mental health subject matter expert at Vanderbilt University’s National Center for Emergency Preparedness, and he has been a guest lecturer at Georgetown University School of Public Health. He co-founded and co-led the World Bank Mental Health and Psychosocial Working Group. He has been a consultant/advisor to global senior executive leadership at the World Economic Forum, the United Nations Development Programme and with executives in the healthcare/mental health industry. In the field of telemedicine, he has served as the Chair of the American Telemedicine Association Mental Health Special Interest Group, and he served as a subject matter expert on the development and implementation of the U.S. Air Force telemedicine program. Additionally, he is a former U.S. Air Force Mental Health Officer.
Eugene has first-hand experience and knowledge in trauma-informed care in post-disaster settings, such as, Japan, Haiti, Italy, Hurricane Katrina, and the September 11th terrorist attacks. He had been directly involved in projects in post-conflict settings, including support medical doctors in Syria and refugees in Lebanon. He published the findings of his work in international peer-reviewed journals, such as, the International Review of Psychiatry, Academic Psychiatry, and Current Psychiatry Reports. He has presented papers at numerous national and international meetings and he has published two books focused on post-disaster mental health. He has also peer-reviewed for articles and books for a number of professional journals, including Oxford University Press, The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, and the Telemedicine and e-Health Journal.