VIRTIS - Veteran, Immigrant, and Refugee Trauma Institute of Sacramento

Louis Downs, PhD, Clinical Director, and Director, VIRTIS South-East Asian Mental Health Program.

Louis Downs, Ph.D., Interim Clinical Director, board member and Director of the South-East Asian Mental Health Program, received his doctorate in Counseling from Oregon State University after having spent more than 17 years as a counselor and clinical administrator. He is presently a Professor at California State University Sacramento in the Department of Counselor Education. His clinical specialties include survivors of trauma, disaster mental health relief, and crisis work, dissociative disorders, personality disordered states, anxiety disorders and co-occurring disorders. He has is a specialist in school counseling, having coauthored two books on the subject, and is a specialist in school counseling students with neuropsychological disorder as well as with gifted students.

He has consulted and trained counselors in Brunei Darussalam, developed a school-based PTSD program for the Phang Nga region of Thailand, collaborated with the Bureau of Innovative Programs of the Ministry of Eduction of Thailand to develop a new school guidance system for the country, and been a Fellow of the PERMATApintar Gifted Student Program at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. Further, he has taught post traumatic stress disorder and critical incident process debriefing counseling to the Singapore Armed Forces Counselling Centre, trained the primary disaster mental health relief teams of the State of Penang, Malaysia and of Sichuan Province, Peoples’ Republic of China after the earthquake of 2008. He has fulfilled two Fulbright Fellowships. Having finished a 3 year term as curriculum advisor to the New Era College Department of Guidance and Counseling Psychology in Kajang, Malaysia, and as clinical consultant to the Qing-jian Counseling Center in Shanghai, China, he is presently on the advisory board of Turning Point Integrated Wellness Center, Puchong, Malaysia. He is also a member of the American Bar Association Round Table expert witness pool and a lifetime member of PERKAMA, the counseling association of Malaysia.

Email: LouisDowns@virtis-ptsd.org

Diane Kim, VIRTIS Research Assistant, South East Asia Program

An undergraduate student in International Relations with minors in Human Rights and Italian at UC Davis, Diane is intent on pursuing a Masters of Public Health and a professional career in transnational and global health. Her interest in health and human rights led her to her work in Cambodia, India, and the Philippines, and her work at VIRTIS focuses on outcome evaluation of cultural competence in health and psychosocial services in underserved populations at the levels of individual providers and agencies, international health organizations, and NGOs. Diane is of Korean ancestry and speaks Korean and basic Italian.

Email: DianeKim@virtis-ptsd.org