Francisco Ortega MA, PhD

Francisco Ortega is a Full professor at the Institute for Social Medicine of the State University of Rio de Janeiro. He is also the research director of the “Rio Center for Global Health” at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, and Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Social Science, Health and Medicine at Kings College London. He has been Visiting Professor at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, Bielefeld University, Oldenburg University, and the University of Buenos Aires. Currently, he is involved in investigating the introduction of Global Mental Health Policies in Brazil and the key challenges in the development and implementation of primary mental health care in Brazil and Latin America with a focus on the role of urban settings. He also investigates the examination of the many emerging ‘neuro-disciplines’ such as neuroethics, cultural neuroscience, neuroaesthetics, and the centralization of autism and other psychiatric disorders. Finally, he also conducts comparative and cross-cultural research on autism advocacy and the politicization of the biosocial field of autism in Canada, Brazil, the USA, the UK, Sweden, and Australia.