Pat Omidian holds a PhD in Medical Anthropology from the University of California (1992) and has over thirty years experience as an applied medical anthropologist, including seventeen years in Afghanistan and Pakistan. She was a Senior Fulbright Scholar (1997-1998) and again from (2012-2017), and taught at universities in the US, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Japan. Her academic work has included five years in the area of university design and faculty development for liberal arts university education in Pakistan. She has been a consultant for UNICEF, the World Food Program, UNWomen, UNAIDS, Save the Children and The IRC and the WHO. She has traveled throughout Pakistan, collecting data on the culture of emotions and working on resilience and trauma recovery at the community level. Omidian has published four books and has many peer- reviewed articles on community mental health, anthropology and war, and post war trauma. She, with her partner Melinda Darer, opened Focusing Initiatives International, a not-for-profit organization that promotes positive emotional and social resilience globally. Her trainings have led to the development of community training manuals in English, Urdu, Pashto, Dari and Japanese. Her most recent publication is Reaching Resilience: A training manual on community wellness, available on Amazon.
