Harry Minas

Prof. Harry Minas is the Head of the Global and Cultural Mental Health Unit at the School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne, holding qualifications including BMedSc, MBBS, DPsychMed, and FRANZCP Psychiatrist. His areas of expertise span global mental health, mental health system development, disaster mental health, and multicultural mental health focusing on the mental health of immigrants and refugees.

His professional appointments and advisory roles include serving as a Member of the Interdisciplinary Clinical Advisory Group for the Department of Health in Victoria, Australia, a Distinguished Fellow of the Pacific Rim College of Psychiatrists, and a Development Partner and Technical Advisor for ASEAN Health Cluster 1 (NCDs and Mental Health). He has also acted as a periodic consultant to Ministries of Health in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam, and Ministries of Social Affairs in Indonesia and Vietnam, alongside multiple short-term consultancies for the WHO Southeast Asia Regional Office, WHO Western Pacific Regional Office, and various WHO Country Offices. He was a Member of the World Health Organization Panel of Experts on Mental Health and Substance Abuse (2007–2020), Regional Vice-President for Asia and the Pacific for the World Association for Psychosocial Rehabilitation, and the Inaugural Director of the Victorian Transcultural Psychiatry Unit (1989–2015). Additionally, he founded and served as Editor-in-Chief of Australasian Psychiatry (1993–2000) and the International Journal of Mental Health Systems (2007–2021).

His research achievements feature extensive publications in cultural psychiatry and mental health systems, boasting a Google Scholar h-index of 55 with over 10,000 citations. He was also recognized as a ScholarGPS 2024 Highly Ranked Scholar, ranking #22 in the world in the discipline of Health Systems.

His selected awards and honors include the inaugural Council of Academic Public Health Institutions of Australia President’s Award for Humanitarian Contributions Through Public Health in 2015, the Mental Health Foundation of Australia’s MHFA Mental Health Advocate of the Year Award in 2023, and the Victorian Multicultural Commission Award for Excellence in Mental Health and Wellbeing in 2024. He was also named a ScholarGPS 2024 Highly Ranked Scholar, ranking #22 in the world in the field of Health Systems.