Maria Caterina (Cat) Gargano

Cat Gargano (peace studies and psychology) is a San Diego native. She received a B.A. in Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Laurea Magistrale in Protection of Human Rights and International Cooperation from Università di Bologna in Italy. Most recently, she has worked with the Psychosocial Innovation Network, a Serbian NGO, to found the Consortium on Refugees' and Migrants' Mental Health (CoReMH).

Cat's research focuses on migration, interpersonal violence (including Intimate Partner Violence and Gender-Based Violence), and mental health. Her experiences in several transit countries have made her particularly interested in developing interventions that are trauma-informed, culturally meaningful, and feasible to apply in displacement and other low-resource contexts. At Notre Dame, she hopes to gain the tools needed not only to address the mental health symptoms that can arise from conflict and displacement, but also to understand and challenge the larger systems that maintain these harmful conditions.

Cat is a Dean’s Fellow.

Recent Publications

Gargano, M. C., Ajduković, D., & Vukčević Marković, M. (2022). Mental Health in the Transit Context: Evidence from 10 Countries. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(6), 3476. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19063476