Lynne Jones

This information is accurate as of the fellowship year indicated for each fellow.

Lynne Jones is a child psychiatrist, relief worker, and writer. She has spent much of the last 18 years establishing and running mental health programs in areas of conflict or natural disaster. Her most recent book, Then They Started Shooting: Growing Up in Wartime Bosnia (Harvard University Press, 2005), explores children’s understanding of political violence. Her field diaries have been published in the London Review of Books and O, The Oprah Magazine, and her audio diaries broadcast on the BBC World Service. She is currently the senior mental health advisor for International Medical Corps and a research associate in the Developmental Psychiatry Section at the University of Cambridge.

Jones plans to use her fellowship year to work on a professional memoir. This will be a personal exploration of changing mental health practices in humanitarian relief over the last two decades. It will discuss clinical issues, such as dealing with mass grief or caring for those with severe mental illness, and personal issues, including motivations and life in the field. The narrative will draw on her diaries, correspondence, and memories and on the experiences and reflections of other relief workers and analysts of humanitarianism.

Jones has an MA in human sciences from the University of Oxford. She qualified in medicine before specializing in psychiatry and has a PhD in social psychology and political science. In 2001, she was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for her work in child psychiatry in conflict-affected areas of Central Europe.