Dr. Marilyn Ahun Receives Victoria S. Levin Award for Early Career Success in Young Children’s Mental Health
Dr. Marilyn N. Ahun is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at McGill University. Her selected mentor is Dr. Sherryl Goodman, the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Psychology at Emory University. Dr. Ahun holds a B.A. Hons in Psychology from McGill University and a Ph.D. in Public Health from the Université de Montréal School of Public Health. She recently completed a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) funded Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Global Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Dr. Ahun’s program of research aims to identify the mechanisms through which parental mental health and parenting behaviors impact child development and mental health in global contexts. She works towards this aim using both observational research methods to examine mediators and moderators of the associations of parental depression with child development and mental health; as well as intervention research to design, implement, and evaluate interventions that support caregivers to promote children’s development and mental health.
Her work under this award will test the efficacy of a multicomponent parenting and parental mental health intervention for mothers and fathers in rural Ghana to improve children’s mental health. Additionally, she will also examine the mechanisms through which the intervention impacts child outcomes. Findings from this research will shed light on the independent and joint effects of targeting parenting behaviors and parental mental health on improving child and family wellbeing.
About the Victoria S. Levin Award
The Victoria S. Levin Award for Early Career Success in Young Children’s Mental Health Research was established to honor and carry forward the focus of Victoria S. Levin’s life's work in scientific research addressing young children’s mental health. Honoring Vicki’s 30 years of distinguished service at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the award’s aim is to heighten the chances of early success in achieving NIH funding for developmentally-informed research that addresses the early foundations of children’s mental health and well-being. The Victoria S. Levin Award is made possible by the donations of hundreds of Vicki’s friends, colleagues, and family members.