Dr. Rony Berger is a senior clinical psychologist and a family and child therapist who is an internationally recognized expert in dealing with the psychological preparation for and aftermath of terrorism and other major disasters. Dr. Berger is on the faculty of Emergency Medicine at Ben Gurion University as well as on the faculty of the Stress, Crisis and Trauma program at Tel Aviv University. He is the Director of Disaster Relief and Rehabilitation Unit at Brit Olam, an International Relief organization, and also a Fellow in Psychology Beyond Borders, a humanitarian organization aims at alleviating the psychological suffering in the aftermath of traumatic events.
Dr. Berger has been on the advisory board of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University where is help design compassion cultivation programs as well collaborate with Prof. Philip Zimbardo (The Stanford Jail Experiment) on developing manuals to enhance community resiliency, promote pro-social behavior and tolerance toward the other.
From 1999-2010 he was the director of the community services at Natal Trauma Center where he designed community programs to deal with the impact of war and terrorism and trained thousands of professionals in treating trauma survivors.
During the period of 1997-2000, Dr. Berger was a Visiting Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Medicine at Al Quds University where he taught medical and graduate students and co-directed the Palestinian Center for Traumatic Stress Studies. Additionally, he served as a senior researcher at the Harry Truman Center for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
In training professionals and in leading emergency relief and medical teams, Dr. Berger has been involved in many major disasters including the Oklahoma City, 9/11, Katrina, the Tsunami in Asia, the terror attacks in Sri Lanka and Thailand, and the earthquakes in Turkey, Indonesia, China, Samoa, Haiti, and most recently in Japan.
Full CV (PDF)
