Karla Vermeulen

Karla Vermeulen, Ph.D., is the Deputy Director of the Institute for Disaster Mental Health and an Associate Professor of Psychology at SUNY New Paltz, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in disaster mental health, grief counseling, and developmental psychology. She also oversees the Advanced Certificate in Trauma and Disaster Mental Health, and the Student Psychological Resilience Project, a campus peer support initiative intended to reduce stigma and build awareness around student mental health issues. In addition to teaching and research, she has coordinated the development and production of training curricula for the New York State Department of Health and Office of Mental Health, the American Red Cross, the United Nations, and other organizations. She is co-author of Disaster Mental Health Interventions: Core Principles and Practices (2017) and co-editor of Disaster Mental Health Case Studies: Lessons Learned from Counselling in Chaos (2019), both published by Routledge. Her next book, Generation Disaster: Coming of Age Post-9/11, was published in August 2021 in the Oxford University Press Emerging Adulthood series. Learn more about the book at generationdisaster.com.

MuseumNext Museums, Health & Wellbeing Summit
Wednesday, 02 February 2022

Supporting Museum Staff in a Trauma-Infused World

Museums today confront a variety of social, political, environmental concerns and challenges. While necessary, these efforts are not without consequence for museum and culture sector employees. What happens when the commonplace stresses of work and life move beyond the interpersonal or organisational into trauma-based ones, and staff must confront and cope with such realities? In this workshop, hear how the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History partnered with the Institute for Disaster Mental Health at the State University of New York at New Paltz to confront such challenges and how your organisation can begin this process as well.

Find the full schedule here