ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERS
Francis Lu, MD, Lead Scientific Advisor
Dr. Lu is considered one of the country’s leading experts on AAPI mental health as well as cultural competency in general. He is currently Luke and Grace Kim Endowed Professor in Cultural Psychiatry, at UC Davis. He was formerly a Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco as well as Dir. of the Cultural Competence and Diversity Program, Department of Psychiatry at San Francisco General Hospital, where he has worked for over 29 years. In 1991, UCSF awarded Dr. Lu the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Award for “extraordinary leadership and inspiration in furthering the goal of achieving ethnic diversity within the UCSF community”. As a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, Dr. Lu has contributed to the areas of cultural psychiatry, psychiatric education, film and the transpersonal, and the interface of psychiatry and religion/spirituality through his presentations and more than 70 publications. In 2002, he received a Special APA Presidential Commendation for his work in cross-cultural psychiatry. In 2002, the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill awarded him an Exemplary Psychiatrist Award for exceptional cultural awareness and sensitivity. He served as Executive Scientific Advisor for a 58-minute training videotape/DVD "The Culture of Emotions" about the DSM-IV Outline for Cultural Formulation.

Bill Lichtenstein, Consulting Producer
A former producer for ABC News, 20/20, World News Tonight and Nightline,, Lichtenstein founded Lichtenstein Creative Media in 1990, following his diagnosis and recovery from bipolar disorder. He and his wife, June Peoples produced West 47th St., a documentary focusing on people recovering from mental illness, which won numerous film festival awards as well as the CINE Golden Eagle Award. "In Any Language: Mental Health Care for Immigrants" an episode of their radio show covering mental health issues, The Infinite Mind, won Lichtenstein Creative Media’s fourth Media Award from the National Mental Health Association. Lichtenstein is a 2005 Guggenheim Fellow and has won more 60 awards for his producing work.

Kinike Bermudez, Consumer Advocate
Ms. Bermudez is a founding member of the National Asian American Pacific Islander Mental Health Association (NAAPIMHA), National Alliance of Multi-Ethnic Behavioral Health Associations (NAMBHA), and National People of Color Client, Consumer, Survivors, Ex-Patients Network. She serves as a consumer advocate and representative for all of these organizations. She served as a peer reviewer for the Surgeon General’s Mental Health Supplement Report: Culture, Race, and Ethnicity.

D.J. Ida, Ph.D., Exec. Dir., National Asian American Pacific Islander Mental Health Association
Dr. Ida is a board member of the National Mental Health Association (ww.nmha.org) and has worked with Asian Pacific Americans for more than 30 years. She was invited to the first White House Conference on Mental Health and the Summit on AAPI Mental Health. Dr. Ida served as a peer reviewer for the 2001 Surgeon General’s Report on Mental Health: Culture, Race, and Ethnicity and helped write the subcommittee paper on Cultural Competency for the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health. She serves as the Principal Investigator for a CMHS funded Workforce Training project that developed the first national training curriculum on how to provide culturally competent services to Asian American Pacific Islanders.