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On June 13, 2025, the Hanoi University of Public Health (HUPH) awarded an honorary professorship to Dr. Victoria Ngo in recognition of her over 25 years of leadership in global mental health, task-sharing, and capacity-building in Vietnam. The ceremony was attended by CUNY SPH leadership, including Dean Ayman El-Mohandes and Associate Dean Lynn Roberts (on behalf of Senior Associate Dean Terry McGovern), as well as faculty members Dr. Terry Huang and Dr. Pedro Mateu-Gelabert.
Dr. Ngo’s longstanding collaboration with academic, health, and community organizations across Vietnam has led to transformative advancements in mental health care. These include the establishment of Vietnam’s first clinical psychology program and the development and scale-up of a collaborative care model for depression. At the core of these efforts is her partnership with HUPH and her leadership of Project DEP, a groundbreaking NIMH-funded randomized controlled trial testing three implementation strategies for scaling depression care across 36 communes.
The study trained over 450 personnel—including local trainers, provincial psychiatric supervisors, district mental health clinicians, and commune health station staff—and screened nearly 15,000 individuals, ultimately providing evidence-based behavioral activation therapy to more than 1,500 patients. All three implementation models improved access and outcomes, with the community-engaged learning collaborative model yielding the highest levels of patient engagement, treatment completion, and cost-effectiveness.
Dr. Ngo has also played a central role in institutional partnership-building between CUNY SPH and HUPH. Her efforts led to a formal Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), the integration of the depression care task-sharing curriculum into the HUPH Department of Social Work’s training and internship programs, and ongoing joint initiatives to sustain and expand these efforts to new populations and regions in Vietnam.
Beyond program development and research, Dr. Ngo serves as an advisor to the Vietnam National Association of Psychology, supporting professionalization of the field and alignment with Ministry of Health priorities. She has also mentored three cohorts of CUNY SPH students conducting mental health and cancer-related projects through the NIH-funded Cancer Epidemiology Education in Special Populations (CEESP) Fellowship Program, led by Dr. Amr Soliman. Plans are underway to expand this program to strengthen mental health integration within cancer care services in Vietnam.
In a continued commitment to bilateral exchange and capacity building, Dean El-Mohandes also announced the creation of international fellowships to support two HUPH faculty members in pursuing master’s degrees in Health Communications for Social Change at CUNY SPH.
Through this honorary professorship, HUPH honors Dr. Ngo’s vision, leadership, and enduring contributions to equitable, sustainable mental health systems in Vietnam and beyond.
(HUPH) awarded an honorary professorship to Dr. Victoria Ngo in recognition of her over 25 years of leadership in global mental health, task-sharing, and capacity-building in Vietnam. The ceremony was attended by CUNY SPH leadership, including Dean Ayman El-Mohandes and Associate Dean Lynn Roberts (on behalf of Senior Associate Dean Terry McGovern), as well as faculty members Dr. Terry Huang and Dr. Pedro Mateu-Gelabert.
Dr. Ngo’s longstanding collaboration with academic, health, and community organizations across Vietnam has led to transformative advancements in mental health care. These include the establishment of Vietnam’s first clinical psychology program and the development and scale-up of a collaborative care model for depression. At the core of these efforts is her partnership with HUPH and her leadership of Project DEP, a groundbreaking NIMH-funded randomized controlled trial testing three implementation strategies for scaling depression care across 36 communes.
The study trained over 450 personnel—including local trainers, provincial psychiatric supervisors, district mental health clinicians, and commune health station staff—and screened nearly 15,000 individuals, ultimately providing evidence-based behavioral activation therapy to more than 1,500 patients. All three implementation models improved access and outcomes, with the community-engaged learning collaborative model yielding the highest levels of patient engagement, treatment completion, and cost-effectiveness.
Dr. Ngo has also played a central role in institutional partnership-building between CUNY SPH and HUPH. Her efforts led to a formal Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), the integration of the depression care task-sharing curriculum into the HUPH Department of Social Work’s training and internship programs, and ongoing joint initiatives to sustain and expand these efforts to new populations and regions in Vietnam.
Beyond program development and research, Dr. Ngo serves as an advisor to the Vietnam National Association of Psychology, supporting professionalization of the field and alignment with Ministry of Health priorities. She has also mentored three cohorts of CUNY SPH students conducting mental health and cancer-related projects through the NIH-funded Cancer Epidemiology Education in Special Populations (CEESP) Fellowship Program, led by Dr. Amr Soliman. Plans are underway to expand this program to strengthen mental health integration within cancer care services in Vietnam.
In a continued commitment to bilateral exchange and capacity building, Dean El-Mohandes also announced the creation of international fellowships to support two HUPH faculty members in pursuing master’s degrees in Health Communications for Social Change at CUNY SPH.
Through this honorary professorship, HUPH honors Dr. Ngo’s vision, leadership, and enduring contributions to equitable, sustainable mental health systems in Vietnam and beyond.
