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| Hermioni Lokko Amonoo, MD, MPP |
Hermioni Lokko Amonoo, MD, MPP, of the Department of Psychiatry, earned a 2019 Faculty Career Development Award from the Brigham’s Office for Research Careers to support her project, “A Positive Psychology Intervention for Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant Patients: A Proof of Concept Trial.”
This award recognizes junior faculty at the early stages of their academic career who are pursuing research endeavors. It provides transitional funding to enhance productivity and growth during the early critical years when young faculty must teach, do research, compete for grants, publish and practice at the same time they may be assuming increased family or other responsibilities.
In addition to her research and clinical practice, Lokko Amonoo serves as associate program director of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School Psychiatry Residency Training Program.
Her winning project involves hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), a potentially lifesaving treatment for some blood cancers. This therapy, however, often comes with intense complications that can be psychologically taxing for patients and pose challenges to recovery. To address this, she and her team have developed a psychological intervention to help patients feel more fulfilled, engaged and hopeful, despite their treatment challenges. Positive psychology programs have been associated with better health outcomes for patients with other illnesses, but this has not yet been studied in HSCT patients. If successful, their intervention will be an important new intervention that could substantially and positively change their recovery.
The Office for Research Careers’ mission is to support the professional needs of the research community at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. It strives to support research trainees and faculty across the academic continuum by providing resources to support and promote career and professional development, enhance the training experience and foster effective mentoring.
