Who We Are

Dr. Manivone Thikeo, Executive Director

Dr. Manivone Thikeo is a Lao native and citizen who received an MD in Laos. She then traveled to the United States for further training, receiving a Masters of Public Health (MPH) from Boston University and a PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Rhode Island. In 2008 she participated in the Harvard University Global Mental Health Program, selected as one of only 40 participants worldwide considered to be current or future international leaders in this arena.

Dr. Marion Phoummarath Zahn, President

Born and raised in Houston, TX, in a traditional Laotian household, she embraces her Laotian heritage and feels privileged to have the opportunity to help other Laotians as the president of HELP. As a nurse in Laos before immigrating to the U.S., her mother, Soukha Phoummarath, made a career of helping others and inspired her to pursue a career in a helping field. After an invigorating high school psychology class, Dr. Zahn decided to direct her studies toward pursuing a career in psychology. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Psychology, a Master of Science in Educational Psychology, and a Doctorate in Counseling Psychology from Texas A & M University.

Bountiap Ketnouvong, Treasurer

Bountiap (Tiap) Ketnouvong was born in Vientiane, Laos. She emigrated from Laos to the United States with her family in 1980. Her parents had dreams to see their children obtain higher education and to live better lives. Tiap and her siblings did just that. Today, Tiap feels fortunate to have a wonderful, supportive family that helped to achieve her goals. Tiap wanted to give back to the community and feels honored to be a part of the HELP Organization. Brining mental health awareness to people in Laos is so important and Tiap is proud to be making a difference.

Phousady Chantharangsy, Secretary

Phousady Chantharangsy was born in a remote village of Xiangkhoang Province. Due to the spread of Vietnam War, much of her childhood life was spent migrating from one town to the next and hiding in one cave or another trying to avoid the constant bombardment from modern artilleries and sophisticated warplanes. Her entire childhood life was spent trekking from her birth village through numerous minefields and dense jungles. She reached the capital city of Viantiane by her puberty and shortly thereafter her journey took her half way around the world. Phousady arrived in Providence, Rhode Island by her teenage years. She attended a high school for the first time knowing a few words of English. After receiving her Associate degree from the local Community College, she spent much of her adult life volunteering in the Laotian community where she lives.

Carol Charpentier

Carol Charpentier, MA is a volunteer Executive Board member and co-founder of HELP. She is an American native and citizen. She has many years experience working in mental health field. She was a former sponsor for refugees from Lao PDR who resettled in Massachusetts. She has been involving with Southeast Asian community for many years and has adopted two children from Laotian refugee family.

Dr. Paul Florin

Dr. Paul Florin is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Rhode Island and an adjunct Professor at Brown University in the Department of Community Health. A clinical/community psychologist, he has been involved in citizen participation and community development as both researcher and practitioner for more than 25 years. Dr. Florin´  research interests focus on the relationships between community conditions and the health of community populations and the design of service delivery systems that supply training and technical assistance for community health initiatives. He has written on citizen participation and organizational effectiveness in community development, has developed training programs for community prevention programming and has been a recipient of grants studying community development and community-based prevention from the National Science Foundation, Ford Foundation, and Center for Substance Abuse Prevention. Dr. Florin has also been a consultant around the design of community based prevention programs and training and technical assistance systems to national and international organizations such as the National Cancer Institute, Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, American Legacy Foundation, Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, Ministry of Health for the Providence of Ontario, Canada and the Center for Maori Studies at the University of Waikato, New Zealand.

Dr. Jeff Migneault

Dr. Jeff Migneault is a clinical psychologist, with an expertise in the integration of behavioral (psychological) interventions into primary medical care for both the treatment of mental health conditions and assisting patients improve health related behaviors such as poor diet quality, cigarette smoking, and poor adherence to medical recommendations.

Dr. Migneault has provided direct clinical services to patients with mental health and substance abuse issues for over 20 years. For the past four years he has been working for Psychological Centers, Inc, a leader in the area of integration of mental health interventions into primary medical care. From 2001 to 2006 he was faculty member of Boston University School of Medicine directing National Institute of Health funded research projects designing and evaluating telemedicine interventions to improve patient self-care, especially for underserved populations, and he remains an adjunct faculty member.

Dr. Migneault received his bachelor degree from Brown University and his doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Rhode Island. He completed his clinical internship / post doctoral training at Beth Israel Hospital within the Harvard Medical School system.

Jeff also has an abiding interest in developing countries starting with spending a college semester in Nepal in 1977. He has also spent time in Kenya and Guatemala.

Alisha Quitt

Alisha Quitt received her BA from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in Sociology and received a Certificate of the Advanced Study in Management from Northeastern University. She currently works at Boston Scientific's Financial Shared Services Department.

Manilay Khamsyvoravong, BA

Manilay Khamsyvoravong is a US citizen by naturalization. She received her BA from New York University in Economics and immediately employed by Rabobank International of New York where she began as an intern and very rapidly moved up to a level of analyst. Wanting to stay close to family, she returned to her familiar state of Rhode Island and established her real estate and financial services business. Besides running her successful business, Manilay also greatly involves herself with the community from miscellaneous work at the Laotian temple to Minority Event Organizer for Rhode Island Governor Candidate of 2010.