Karestan Koenen

"Trauma changes the body as well as the mind. Good science should follow it there, and so should good care."

Her Role

Karestan Koenen is a Research Advisor to Beckley Retreats. She advises the team on how the program is studied and measured, on the standards our research applications are held to, and on how findings should be reported honestly. Her affiliation describes her individual role and published research, not a university partnership with or endorsement of Beckley Retreats.

Her Story

Karestan is Professor of Psychiatric Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and directs the Broad Trauma Initiative at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, where she is an Institute Member. Her research asks why some people recover after trauma and others do not, how trauma alters physical health and accelerates ageing, and how evidence-based mental health care can reach more of the people who need it.

She studied economics at Wellesley College, took a master's in developmental psychology at Columbia University and a PhD in clinical psychology at Boston University, and completed postdoctoral training in psychiatric epidemiology at Columbia. She is a past president of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, received its Robert S. Laufer Memorial Award for Outstanding Scientific Achievement, and is co-author of the clinical guide Treating Survivors of Childhood Abuse and Interpersonal Trauma.

Her commitment to this field is personal. After an assault while serving with the Peace Corps in Niger, she turned her career toward understanding trauma and toward advocacy, including testimony before Congress in 2011 on behalf of Peace Corps volunteers.

Her Why

Karestan is interested in what actually helps people carry less, and in holding new approaches to the same standard of evidence as established ones. At Beckley she brings that discipline to a program that many guests come to at a crossroads, so that what we learn from it can be trusted.