Zavi Lakissian, MD, MPH, Director
Executive Board
Dr. Lakissian is the simulation program and research coordinator at AUBMC. Dr. Lakissian earned her medical degree from Yerevan State Medical University, Yerevan, Armenia in 2013. In parallel, during her last two years of medical school, she completed her graduate studies in public health at the American University of Armenia (AUA), and then in social anthropology at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Dr. Lakissian completed a post- doctoral research fellowship in the Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine at the AUBMC.
Omar Fattal, MD, MPH
Executive Board
Omar Fattal is a founder, past president and current board member of the Lebanese Medical Association for Sexual Health (LebMASH) as well as a founder and current board member of Friends of LebMASH. He is currently a member of the editorial board of the LGBT Health journal. He is a former fundraising officer and a member of Helem, a Lebanese LGBT rights organization.
Omar Fattal is currently the Deputy Chief Medical Officer and System Chief of Behavioral Health at NYC Health + Hospitals and a psychiatrist with the Pride Clinic at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. He is also a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. He is a 1999 graduate of the American University of Beirut (AUB) Medical School. He also holds a Master’s Degree in Public Health from AUB. He completed his residency in Psychiatry at the Cleveland Clinic in 2005.
Sarah Abboud, RN, PhD
Dr. Sarah Abboud is an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, College of Nursing, Department of Women, Children, and Family Health Science. Dr. Abboud completed her BS and MS (adult care) in Nursing at the American University of Beirut School of Nursing, Lebanon, and her PhD and post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, where she was a member of the Centers for Global Women’s Health and Health Equity Research.
Dr. Abboud’s doctoral dissertation looked at the meanings of virginity and virginity loss among Arab and Arab American women using qualitative methods. During her post-doctoral fellowship, she investigated the meanings of healthy sexualities and the relationships between ethnic identity, communication with parents about sexuality, and sexual attitudes and behaviors among Arab and Arab American youth through a mixed methods study. She was also involved in a community-based participatory research study funded by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention to design and develop a gender and culturally relevant, theoretically driven, HIV/STI prevention intervention in Black adolescents with mental illnesses.
Dr. Abboud’s research interests focus on understanding and identifying individual, societal, cultural, and structural factors associated with risk and protective sexual health factors among Arabs and Arab Americans. One area of particular interest is understanding the impact of the intersectionality of racial/ethnic identities, gender and sexual identities, religion, family, socio-cultural factors, and stigma and discrimination on sexual behaviors and health of Arabs and Arab Americans. She has published several articles and has been teaching the Human Sexuality and Health course for undergraduate students for several years.
Claude Chidiac, RN, MSc, FHEA
Executive Board
Claude Chidiac is the Lead Nurse for Palliative Care at Homerton University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK, and a Visiting Senior Lecturer at City, University of London. Claude completed his BSc in Nursing at the American University of Beirut and MSc in Palliative Care Clinical Practice at University College Dublin, Ireland. He obtained a postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice in Higher Education from King’s College London and subsequently became a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, UK. Claude is currently a PhD Candidate in Palliative Care at the International Observatory on End of life Care, Lancaster University, UK.
Claude has assumed a variety of academic, clinical, and leadership roles in acute, hospice, and community settings in the UK and globally. His current work focuses on improving palliative care access and provision for marginalised populations. His PhD research explores how the intersecting social positions of living with dementia and belonging to a gender or sexual minority group may impact on the needs and preferences about the end of life. Claude has been involved in a number of consultations to support organisations in providing equitable palliative care to diverse communities.
Antoine Beayno, MD
Executive Board
Antoine Beayno, MD is currently a Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry fellow at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. He completed his Psychiatry residency at the American University of Beirut. He has joined LebMASH as a partner in 2018 and became a Board member in April 2019. His interests in the field of Psychiatry are LGBT Mental Health, Transgender Medicine and people living with HIV. He has given multiple trainings and workshops to mental health providers in Lebanon and the region about LGBT-affirmative care.
Michel Sfeir, MSc
Executive Board
Mr. Michel Sfeir earned his MSc from the University of Lausanne in Switzerland and is currently pursuing a doctorate in clinical psychology in Belgium. His thesis focuses on the transmission of resilience within families.
Having completed training with the French and Francophone Society of Psycho-Oncology, Michel Sfeir is a psycho-oncologist and a clinical psychologist. He is currently the mental health coordinator of a Lebanese NGO called AlNajatVillage and the workshop director of another Lebanese initiative called BeBraveBeirut.
After the Beirut blast in 2020, Michel underwent Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET) training to work with people suffering from trauma and PTSD. His research areas vary from resilience, attachment, addictive disorders, sexual disorders, and mental health well-being. In addition to his research interest, Michel Sfeir completed several clinical training such as: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialecticla Behavioral Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.