Our Team

Susan M. Meffert M.D., M.P.H. received B.A., B.S. and M.A. degrees from Stanford University.  She received her M.D. from the University of Iowa and her Masters of Public Health (M.P.H.) degree from Harvard University.  Dr. Meffert completed her residency training in psychiatry and subspeciality training in both research and Forensic Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco.  She is certified in Adult Psychiatry by the American Board of Neurology and Psychiatry and board eligible in Forensic Psychiatry.

Dr. Meffert is an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and Medical Director of the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma.  She is a UCSF Global Health Sciences Burke Award Scholar.

Dr. Meffert conducts clinical research with traumatized populations to develop local standards of mental health care.

Her past and present work involves populations in Haiti, Russia, Nepal, India, the Middle East, Africa and China. Education and teaching are a large part of Dr. Meffert’s academic work.

She teaches in the University of California Berkeley Boalt School of Law International Human Rights Clinic, with UCSF-UC Hastings College of Law collaboration for conducting asylum-seeker evaluations, with the Harvard Program in Global Mental Health training and regularly lectures to attorneys regarding work with traumatized clients and vicarious stress.

She has been singled out one of the best course lecturers every year that she has taught with Harvard.  Dr. Meffert’s forensic interests include trauma and related disorders, cross-cultural psychiatry the use of translators in psychiatric evaluations, the mental health of asylum seekers/refugees and vicarious stress among attorneys working with traumatized clients.

Dr. Meffert has been a forensic expert in over 30 cases and has testified over ten times in court proceedings.  She has been qualified as an expert in the California jurisdiction.