Sophia Banu, M.D., is a board-certified Adult , Child and Adolescent psychiatrist, Associate Professor in the Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, Baylor College of Medicine . She completed her medical education in New Delhi, India, Psychiatry Residency and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship at St Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital, Columbia University, New York and during her Psychosomatic fellowship at the Bellevue / NYU Hospital, she worked primarily with refugees and survivors of torture at the Bellevue/NYU program for Survivors of Torture.
Sophia has extensive experience working with refugees and survivors of torture and natural disasters in Nepal, New York, Greece, Bangladesh , Syria, Turkiye and Houston. She founded the Clinic for International Trauma Survivors for refugees and torture survivors under Harris Health System and Baylor College of Medicine, working with the refugee resettlement agencies, training psychiatry residents, child and adolescent psychiatry fellows and medical students in cultural competency and cultural humility. She started the “Alliance Wellness Center “for refugees and the underserved population, providing mental health care to this vulnerable population.
She is one of the faculty supervisors for the BCM students Physicians for Human rights chapter and Human Rights and Asylum Clinic. Dr. Banu is the co-founder and co-director of the Global Mental Health division under the dept. of Psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine. She is one of the co-authors of the Handbook of Refugee Experience “Trauma, Resilience and Recovery” She is fluent in English, Tibetan, Nepali, Urdu and Hindi, can communicate in Bengali and read Arabic fluently.
She was one of the three refugee experts interviewed on Emmy winning PBS show “Houston Refugees: stories of courage” 2011.