Ahmed Hankir

Dr Ahmed Hankir is Senior Research Fellow of the Bedfordshire Centre for Mental Health in association with Cambridge University and Specialty Trainee in Psychiatry with Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. Dr Hankir’s research interests include global mental health, Muslim mental health and pioneering and evaluating innovative programmes that challenge mental health related stigma and Islamophobia. Dr Hankir was former Chair of the Muslim Engagement and Development Leeds Working Group. Dr Hankir was headhunted by senior members of the American Psychiatric Association to co-edit the first textbook of its kind on Islamophobia and Psychiatry with Professor Rania Awaad at Stanford University who presented her research on Muslim mental health to former President of the United States of America Barack Obama at the White House (due for publication by Springer USA in December 2018). Dr Hankir is the author of the Wounded Healer programme which is an innovative method of teaching that blends the performing arts with psychiatry. The Wounded Healer has been integrated into the medical school curriculum of four UK universities and has been adapted into a documentary by film makers from the London College of Communication and screened at the World Psychiatric Association World Congress in Berlin. Dr Hankir has presented the Wounded Healer to over 65,000 people in 13 countries on five continents throughout the globe and has delivered keynote addresses with Nobel Prize Laureates and Ted speakers in international conferences worldwide. Dr Hankir has worked extensively with university Islamic societies throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland. In 2017 Dr Hankir helped to organize the first ever Muslim mental health conference in Ireland. Dr Hankir collaborated with the Federation of Student Islamic Societies and conducted the first ever intervention study to challenge mental health related stigma in the Muslim community (the FOSIS Birmingham and Dublin studies). Dr Hankir is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards including the 2013 Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych) Foundation Doctor of the Year, the 2017 RCPsych Morris Markowe Prize and he has been shortlisted for the RCPsych Core Trainee of the Year (winner to be announced in November 2018). Dr Hankir was twice shortlisted for the RCPsych Psychiatric Communicator of the Year for his work on the Wounded Healer project. In recognition of his services to academic psychiatry, Dr Ahmed Hankir was appointed Yvonne YuRichco Professor of Psychiatry at the Carrick Institute for Graduate Studies in Cape Canaveral, USA.