Dr. Carrie
York Al-Karam is president of the Alkaram Institute, a nonprofit research and
educational institution dedicated to advancing Islamic psychology to benefit
society and improve lives. Its vision is to become the first Muslim graduate
school of psychology in the United States. Dr. Al-Karam's areas of interest
include Islamic psychology, spiritually integrated psychotherapy, and
virtue/character development from an Islamic perspective. Her edited books are
Mental Health and Psychological Practice in the United Arab Emirates (Palgrave
MacMillan, 2015), Islamically Integrated Psychotherapy: Uniting Faith and
Professional Practice (Templeton Press, 2018) and a children’s character
development book called Maya and the Seven Limbs (Fons Vitae, Fall 2019).
Having lived outside her native United States for nearly 17 years in various
countries, including 10 years in the UAE, she and her family are now setting
down roots in Roanoke, Virginia. In her free time she enjoys jogging,
traveling, and spending time with loved ones.
Dr. Omar M. Mahmood
Dr. Omar M. Mahmood is an Assistant Professor of
Psychology in Clinical Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College. He
completed a bachelor’s degree at UCLA where he double-majored in Arabic and
Psychobiology. He later completed a master’s and Ph.D. degree program in Clinical
Psychology with a minor in Cognitive Neuroscience at Wayne State University.
His post-doctoral training was at the University of California, San Diego,
School of Medicine where he worked on the Adolescent Brain Imaging Project. He
is interested in the development of culturally and linguistically appropriate
assessment tools for use in Arab and Muslim populations. He is a
neuropsychologist with broad experiences as a clinician, a teacher, and a
research scientist. He has conducted cognitive neuroscience research on brain
maturation and function. He frequently gives community lectures on topics of
mental health, brain development, and psychology from an Islamic perspective.
In addition, he has served as an ad-hoc reviewer for various peer reviewed scientific
journals in the fields of substance use, psychology, neuropsychology, and
neuroimaging.
Research Papers Presenters
Dr. Ramezan Dowlati
Dr. Dowlati earned his PhD in psychology from George Washington University in Washington, DC, United States in 2001. Since then, he has taught abnormal psychology, cognitive psychology, and general psychology at a number of universities and colleges in New York, Virginia, and Washington including State University of New York, George Washington University, Catholic University. He is currently a faculty member at Northern Virginia Community College where he teaches a very diverse population of students. Before his immigration to the USA in 1992, Dr. Dowlati earned an MA in Psychology and a BA in Educational Administration from Tehran University. In addition to his main job as an instructor, Dr. Dowlati has conducted research and made publications and presentations. The broad area of his interest is human cognition (normal and abnormal) in interaction with its environment, and in particular, with the modern communication technology.
Dr. Lameese Eldesouky
Lameese Eldesouky is an Assistant
Professor in the Department of Psychology at The American University in Cairo.
The focus of her research is on emotion regulation, specifically (1) how people
regulate their emotions, (2) the consequences of emotion regulation for social
functioning and health, and (3) how to effectively measure emotion regulation.
She received her BA in Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley
and her MA and PhD in Social/Personality Psychology from Washington University
in St. Louis. She completed a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral
Fellowship at Stanford University in the Department of Psychology. She has
received notable awards for her research, including the American Psychological
Association Dissertation Award, Association for Psychological Science Albert
Bandura Graduate Research Award, National Institutes of Health Loan Repayment
Award in Clinical Research, and Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service
Award T32 Pre-doctoral Fellowship.
Workshops Presenters
Dr. Amal A. Alyamani
Amal A. Alyamani is the Director and
Consultant Clinical Psychologist at the Autism Center at King Fahad Armed
Forces Hospital, Jeddah. She is also an independent Consultant Clinical Psychologist
with over 13 years of working experience at various clinical settings in the US
and Saudi Arabia. Her experience in conducting psychological evaluations includes
assessing various areas of functioning and assessing mental, emotional,
developmental and behavioral disorders using batteries of psychological tests. She
is interested in contributing to improve the quality of life of young
individuals with developmental and behavioral disorders as well as supporting
their families. Improving quality of mental health services through early
identifications and early intervention is one of her strong professional
interests.
Farah Lodi
Farah Lodi is the owner and CEO of
Moving Forward, a consulting service in Dubai, where she has lived for 14
years. Prior to that she lived in the US for over thirty years. Farah has a
Masters Degree in Mental Health Counseling from Seton Hall University in New
Jersey and is a Professional Certified Counselor with the Canadian Counseling
and Psychotherapy Association where she has been a regularly featured writer
for their online publication “Counseling Connect”. She is also an adjunct
instructor of psychology at Zayed University in Dubai where she supervises
psychology student interns. Additionally, she has created an online support
group, www.supportseekers.info where professional psychological advice is
offered as a free community service. Her most recent publications are a chapter
in Islamically Integrated Psychotherapy: Uniting Faith and Professional
Practice (Templeton Press, July 2018), as well as a chapter in a children’s
psycho-spiritual development book called Maya and the Seven Limbs (Fons Vitae,
2019).
