Professor Mario Incayawar is a physician, educator, and researcher interested in in the health and traditional medicine of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas.  He is the first Quichua (Inca) physician to graduate from an Ecuadorian medical school.  His areas of expertise include transcultural psychiatry, culturally adapted medical care, Indigenous medical knowledge, pain & ethnicity, and the neuroscience of the healing process. 

Academic & Professional Background.  Dr. Incayawar is the recipient of the prestigious John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship 2006.  He is the founding director of Runajambi (Institute for the Study of Quichua Culture and Health) in Otavalo, Ecuador.  Dr. Incayawar appointments include: Former Henry R. Luce Professor in Brain, Mind, and Medicine: Cross-Cultural Perspectives at Pitzer, Claremont McKenna and Harvey Mudd Colleges, California; Former William F. Quillian Jr. Visiting International Professor at R-MWC, Virginia , USA ; re-elected (2008-2011) member of the Executive Committee of the Transcultural Psychiatry Section of the World Psychiatric Association; Founding Member of the Editorial Board of the World Cultural Psychiatry Research Review (WCPRR) journal, and Regional Advisor for Ecuador; and former Associate Editor, Transcultural Psychiatry Section, WPA Newsletter.

Dr. Incayawar's graduate training include: a graduate diploma in community health at the Université de Montreal, a Masters’ degree in transcultural psychiatry at McGill University in Canada, and an advanced training at the National Institutes of Mental Health Research Center on the Psychobiology of Ethnicity at UCLA, USA.  Currently, Dr. Incayawar is completing a Ph.D. program in biomedical sciences with focus on the psychobiology of pain experiences among Amerindians.

For five years, he was both a scientific consultant and editor of the Transcultural Medicine Section of l'Omnipraticien medical magazine, a publication (24 issues/year) targeting French speaking GPs and family practitioners of Quebec, Canada.  He has authored 55 papers, five chapters, an a book in press, and delivered scholarly presentations at over 30 scientific meetings ( America , Europe, Asia ).  Professor Incayawar teaches the following courses:

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Membership.  The Transcultural Psychiatry Section, World Psychiatric Association; World Association of Cultural Psychiatry; The Society for the Study of Psychiatry and Culture; and the American Pain Society.

Research.  Currently Professor Incayawar is completing a study entitled Understanding the Diagnostic Skills of yachactaita (Quichua Healers of the Andes), funded by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, New York, USA. 

In the past several years, he conducted research on “Llaqui” (depression), and pain experiences among the Quichua communities in the Andes; a research entitled “Screening Clinically Promising Healing Practices among Native Americans of California,” a study supported by a Faculty Fellowship from the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation; and a study on Tongva Medicinal Plants (Native Americans of California).