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– Founder of TransMag Well-Being Clinic, Mumbai
– Associate Director, Psychiatry Research and Consultant Psychiatrist at the Jaslok Hospital and Research Center, Mumbai
– Former Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Duke University Medical Center, USA
– Former Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA
Dr. Shamsah Sonawalla is an internationally renowned Psychiatrist, author, and researcher, with more than 22 years of extensive clinical and research experience in psychiatry across India and the United States. In India, she obtained her M.D. degree in psychiatry from Bombay University (T.N. Medical College & B.Y.L. Nair Hospital) and received several awards in academics and extracurricular activities, including the Bhagwat Award of the Indian Psychiatric Society and the President’s Award from Bombay Psychiatric Society. She completed her postdoctoral training in psychiatry at Harvard and was promoted to instructor in a year, and thereafter, to Assistant Professor of Psychiatry. At Harvard, she did pioneering work in the field of depression among college students (across India and the United States) and received several awards and grants for the same, including the prestigious ‘Young Investigator Award’ from the National Alliance for Research in Schizophrenia and Depression (NARSAD) and the ‘New Investigator Award’ from the New Clinical Drug Evaluation Unit (NCDEU). Her department at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, was voted number one department of psychiatry in the United States for 21 consecutive years by U.S. News.
Dr. Sonawalla has over 100 publications in national and international journals, including the American Journal of Psychiatry, Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, Journal of Psychopharmacology, Psychosomatics, Dialogues in Clinical Neurosciences, and the International Journal of Psychiatry and Medicine. She has also written several book chapters and has co-edited a book on ‘Women’s Health and Psychiatry,’ published in 2002 by Lippincott, Williams, and Wilkins. She returned to India in August 2002 and joined Jaslok Hospital as Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist. She set up two new clinics at Jaslok: Women’s Well-Being Clinic and Mood Disorders Clinic. She has delivered over 100 invited lectures across India and the United States. She also continued her work on depression among college students across India and the United States, helping several thousand students recognize and overcome depression.
Dr. Sonawalla specialized in Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) for psychiatric disorders at Harvard in 2008 and started ‘Trans Mag Well-Being Clinic’ in Bombay in 2010. She has successfully treated several individuals with mood disorders using rTMS. She is also a columnist for a leading national newspaper and is often interviewed by the media to share her opinion on mental health issues; her work has been extensively cited by the media in India and the United States.
She recently received awards at World Mental Health Congress for Global Leader in Mental Health – 2019, and Outstanding Psychiatrist – 2020. She continues to retain her collaborations with Harvard, updating and expanding her clinical skills and research.
– Founder of TransMag Well-Being Clinic, Mumbai
– Associate Director, Psychiatry Research and Consultant Psychiatrist at the Jaslok Hospital and Research Center, Mumbai