Building pathways to recovery through cross-cultural psychology

As the Daphne Keats Chair in Cross-Cultural Psychology, Professor Belinda Liddell’s research focuses on refugee mental health and understanding cross-cultural differences, working to understand why some refugees recover from trauma and displacement more quickly than others.

Among her current projects she is working to understand the long-term impact of absent family for refugees in Australia when family members are missing, have disappeared or are separated.

“The experience of trauma among refugee populations is quite distinct and has a deep impact on a person’s psychological and physical wellbeing. We need to understand what these effects are so we can design treatments, interventions and policies that can help,” says Professor Liddell

A life dedicated to understanding people

Daphne joined the University of Newcastle as a lecturer in Psychology in 1970. Alongside her husband, the late Professor John Keats, she led the field in developing programs of cross-cultural psychology studies, collaborating across university teaching and course planning, professional development and research supervision in both Australia and Asia.

In their lifetime, they established the John and Daphne Keats Endowment Research Fund to support research in the School of Psychology. Daphne’s generous bequest to the Endowment Fund and the Daphne Keats Chair in Cross-Cultural Psychology will ensure her passion and legacy continue to positively impact researchers and research output for generations to come.