Featured Speakers

Navigation:

separator1

“Meet the Scientist” Luncheon Senior Scholars

Thursday, January 12, 12:15 pm – 1:30 pm

The Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR) will be holding the “Meet the Scientist” Luncheon to be held at the SSWR 21st Annual Conference in New Orleans, LA. This special session provides a forum for early career scholars and doctoral students to talk and interact with established senior scholars who are leaders in social work research and the Society. Early career scholars and doctoral students will have the opportunity to ask questions about career development, challenges in the field, research initiatives, and where the field might be heading. Each senior scholar will be seated at a table with up to 6 early career scholars and doctoral students.

Lawrence (Lonnie) Berger
Lawrence (Lonnie) Berger

Lawrence (Lonnie) Berger is the Director of the Institute for Research on Poverty and Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor and Ph.D. Program Chair at the School of Social Work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research focuses on the ways in which economic resources, sociodemographic characteristics, and public policies affect parental behaviors and child and family wellbeing.  He is engaged in studies in three primary areas: (1) examining the determinants of substandard parenting, child maltreatment, and out-of-home placement for children; (2) exploring associations among socioeconomic factors (family structure and composition, economic resources, household debt), parenting behaviors, and children’s care, development, and wellbeing; and (3) assessing the influence of public policies on parental behaviors and child and family wellbeing. To address these topics, he utilizes a variety of statistical techniques to analyze data from a range of large-scale datasets. His work aims to inform public policy in order to improve its capacity to assist families in accessing resources, improving family functioning and wellbeing, and ensuring that children are able to grow and develop in the best possible environments. This research has largely been funded by the National Institutes of Health (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (Administration on Children and Families), Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and MacArthur Foundation.

separator1

Jill Duerr Berrick
Jill Duerr Berrick

Jill Duerr Berrick serves as the Zellerbach Family Foundation Professor in the School of Social Welfare and co-director of the Center for Child and Youth Policy at U.C. Berkeley.  Berrick’s research focuses on the relationship of the state to vulnerable families, particularly those touched by the child welfare system.  She has written or co-written ten books on topics relating to family poverty, child maltreatment, and child welfare.  Her interests target the intersect between poverty, early childhood development, parenting, and the service systems designed to address these issues.  Her research approach typically relies upon the voices of service system consumers to identify the impacts of social problems and social service solutions on family life.  Her new book under development examines child welfare professionals and the morally hazardous and intellectually contested choices they regularly face in their work with children and families.

separator1

Natasha K. Bowen
Natasha K. Bowen

Natasha K. Bowen started as a professor at the College of Social Work at Ohio State University (OSU) in July 2015. Prior to that, she was a faculty member at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) for 13 years. Dr. Bowen developed the Elementary School Success Profile (ESSP), a multi-domain, multiple-source social environmental assessment tool for 3rd through 5th graders. The process was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. With NIDA and funding from the state of North Carolina, Dr. Bowen developed and conducted two quasi-experimental tests of a practice model based on the ESSP. School teams at 8 schools used the assessment to identify needs of students and then implemented appropriate intervention strategies. Her most recent work focuses on developing measures of subtle classroom processes that impede or promote academic engagement. Ultimately the tools will be used to support teachers’ efforts to better engage their students. Dr. Bowen has taught PhD courses in measurement and structural equation modeling (SEM), and MSW courses on research methods, mental health, and human development. She has also published on statistical methods for social work research.

separator1

Lori Holleran Steiker
Lori Holleran Steiker

Lori Holleran Steiker, Ph.D., an addictions therapist turned educator/scholar, is a Distinguished Professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Social Work. She conducts research in the area of adolescent substance use interventions and recovery. She is Co-Founder of University High School, Austin’s first sober high school, and serves as the faculty liaison for the University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Students in Recovery and the University of Texas Drug and Alcohol Peer Advisors.   Her course “Young People and Drugs” is nationally recognized.  She has over 100 peer-reviewed publications and three books, including Youth and Substance Use:  Prevention, Intervention and Recovery (2016). She has received numerous honors including the UT Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award, the Society for Social Work and Research Early Career Award, the Council on Social Work Education’s Distinguished Recent Contributions Award, and the UT School of Social Work DiNitto Mentorship Award. She was recently chosen by UT alumni as one of the Texas 10 (described at the “most talented and inspiring professors ever) and as one of 10 Dedicated and Deserving Social Workers by Social Work Today.

separator1

Waldo E. Johnson, Jr.
Waldo E. Johnson, Jr.

Waldo E. Johnson, Jr., Ph.D., MSW is Associate Professor at the School of Social Service Administration, with affiliation at the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture of the University of Chicago. A family researcher, his scholarship examines social and environmental factors and contexts on urban Black males’ developmental, physical and mental health statuses and their social role identities, assumption and performance across the life course.

Johnson is Co-Investigator of the Fathers and Sons Program Evaluation Study, a NICHD longitudinal, intervention study aimed at enhancing parent-son bonds between nonresident African American fathers and their 8-12 year old sons residing in Chicago’s Washington Park community and promote positive health behaviors via effective communication, cultural awareness and skill building. Johnson is also Co-Principal Investigator for the Father-Son Communication Project (FSCP), a collaborative research initiative funded by the Joint Research Fund of the Chapin Hall Center and the University of Chicago, aims to generate knowledge about how urban fathers help their sons avoid violence, and proposes to use this knowledge to develop and test curricula designed to enhance fathers’ ability to help their pre-adolescent and adolescent sons (12-20) safely navigate urban spaces. Johnson is also a research consultant with ACF/HHS’ Parent and Children Together (PACT) Study, a longitudinal, mixed-methods evaluation of fatherhood programs, led by Mathematica Policy Research and research and content consultant for South Carolina Educational Television (SCETV)/ PBS upcoming series, Fathers in America.

He is a member of the National Association of Black Social Workers and the Society for Social Work and Research; affiliations include the Scholars Network on Masculinity, 2025 Network for Black Men and Boys, and the APA Public Interest Directorate’s Working Group on Health Disparities in Men and Boys. Johnson is a member of the Illinois Juvenile Justice Leadership Council and the Illinois African American Family Commission. He edited Social Work with African American Males: Health, Mental Health and Social Policy and serves on the board of the Center for Family Policy and Practice in Madison, Wisconsin.

Johnson earned a BA in English and Sociology at Mercer University, MSW at the University of Michigan and Ph.D. in social welfare policy at the University of Chicago. He was a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the Program for Research on Black Americans of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. He has been a visiting scholar at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.

separator1

Sheryl Pimlott Kubiak
Sheryl Pimlott Kubiak

Sheryl Pimlott Kubiak, Ph.D. is a Professor in the College of Social Science, Department of Social Work, at Michigan State University. She obtained her graduate degrees from the University of Michigan (MSW, 1988; PhD in psychology and women’s studies, 2002) and was a National Institute of Mental Health pre-doctoral fellow in gender and mental health. Prior to her tenure track positions she was a research associate in the Institute for Research on Women and Gender and the Substance Abuse Research Center – both at University of Michigan. Kubiak has received funding from national (NIMH, NSF, NIDA) and state (MDCH, MDOC, MHHS) government, as well as foundations (i.e., Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Skillman, Flinn). Professional contributions include involvement as a member of peer review panels for National Institute of Mental Health and Fulbright Awards. Currently, she is a PI on a NSF project examining the reporting sexual victimization during incarceration and conducting a cross-site evaluation of pilot diversion programs statewide (Governor’s Diversion Council). Kubiak has also been appointed by the Governor for the state’s Criminal Justice Policy Commission.

separator1

Paula Nurius
Paula Nurius

Paula Nurius, Grace Beals-Ferguson Scholar, Professor, and Associate Dean at the University of Washington School of Social Work brings a long history of experience in doctoral education, including mentoring, doctoral program director, and directorship of an NIMH-funded training program on prevention science prioritizing mental health problems, attentive to translational and transdisciplinary research preparation. She has actively supported research advancement in social work, including Vice-President roles with GADE and with SSWR, as well as service on research capacity and emerging scholar SSWR committees since 2010. She is active within her university’s Graduate School in advancing innovative models of interdisciplinary and team science training.

Her own research on stress, trauma, and violence focuses on at-risk populations, life course development, prevention, and health and functioning resilience. Current research includes investigating the role of adverse early life experiences in shaping adolescent and young adult psychosocial and physical health and role functioning within a framework of co-occurring risks and protective factors. This work integrates structural, social psychological, and physiological theoretical foundations for ways that stress is experienced and becomes embodied, carrying effects through lifespan development.

Dr. Nurius received her joint doctorate in social work and psychology from the University of Michigan where she also received her MA in psychology. She received her MSW from the University of Hawaii. During her graduate training she was awarded an NIMH traineeship award and the Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship and Dissertation Grant Awards. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare and of the Society for Social Work & Research.

separator1

Phyllis Solomon
Phyllis Solomon

Phyllis Solomon, Ph.D. is Professor of social Work in the School of Social Policy & Practice, Professor of Social Work in Psychiatry in the Perelman School of Medicine, and Senior Fellow at the Center for Public Health Initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania.  She has been conducting research and evaluations of services and service intervention for persons with severe mental illness and their families as well as studying mental health service delivery system s and their interactions with other systems, e.g., criminal justice and child welfare for over 40 years.  Her work has also focused on peer provided services and written on this topic and the process of recovery extensively.  She is the recipient of a number of awards from a variety of organizations, including NASW, SSWR, Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association, Association of Community Psychiatrists and the doctoral student mentoring award from the University of Pennsylvania. She is a member of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare and a fellow of SSWR.

separator1

Aaron Rosen Lecture

Friday, January 13, 2017, 11:30 am – 12:30 pm

“The Pursuit of Quality for Social Work Practice: Three Generations and Counting”

Enola Proctor
Enola Proctor

Enola Proctor’s teaching and research are motivated by the question, how do we ensure that people receive the very best possible care?  She has studied this question in a variety of social work, public health, and health care settings, ranging from hospitals to community agencies. She has contributed to the intellectual capital for the rapidly growing field of dissemination and implementation science, leading teams to distinguish, clearly define, develop taxonomies, and stimulate more systematic work to advance the conceptual, linguistic, and methodological clarity in the field.  Her recent studies address how organizations and individual providers can adopt, deliver, and sustain evidence based programs and interventions.

Her research has been funded by the NIMH, the NIA, and AHRQ.  She directs the Implementation Research Institute, a national training program in implementation science funded by the National Institute for Mental Health. She leads the Dissemination and Implementation Research Core for Washington University’s CTSA program, as well as other University dissemination and implementation research centers and cores. She directs the Center for Mental Health Services Research at Washington University, launched and supported for 20 years with NIMH support.  She is PI and Director of a doctoral and post-doctoral training program (T32), now in its 23rd year of continuous NIMH funding.  She served on the NIMH National Advisory Council and an Institute of Medicine Committee on Evidence-Based Standards for Psychosocial Interventions. She is lead implementation scientist for a World Health Organization research training MOOC for neglected tropical diseases of poverty.  She is a founding member of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare, was Editor-in-Chief of Social Work Research, and is a fellow of SSWR.  She has received numerous teaching and mentoring awards from Washington University in St. Louis, and SSWR’s Distinguished Research Award in 2002.

separator1

Annual Social Policy Forum

Saturday, January 14, 11:30 am – 12:30 pm

“Poverty, Child Maltreatment, and Implications for Child Welfare Policy & Services”

Research has established a strong correlation between poverty and both child maltreatment and child protective services (CPS) involvement. Recent evidence suggests that these associations are in fact causal. In this second year of the SSWR Social Policy Forum, faculty researcher Lawrence Berger and practitioner Stacie Leblanc have a conversation about the implications of this finding for child welfare policy and and services. In a combination of presentation, dialogue, and audience Q&A, they consider what engaging in “poverty-informed” child welfare practice would mean for the child welfare system and for the reduction of racial disparities throughout it.

haley-lock
Anna Haley-Lock

Anna Haley-Lock is an Associate Professor at Rutgers University. Her work falls within the organizational and management area, adopting sociological and industrial relations perspectives to investigate influences on employers’ choices about designing, managing, and rewarding jobs; the implications of those choices for workers, families and communities; and the interplay between public policy and both employer practices and worker outcomes. She has studied low-wage jobs and the workers occupying them in for-profit, nonprofit and public settings, including retail stores, restaurants, human services agencies, and the US Postal Service. Dr. Haley-Lock’s findings inform social work practice by identifying and assessing “upstream” strategies for changing workplaces and public employment policies to promote economic and social wellbeing. She received her Masters and PhD in Social Service Administration from the University of Chicago, and has served on the social work faculties of the University of Washington and University of Wisconsin-Madison.

separator1

Lawrence (Lonnie) Berger
Lawrence (Lonnie) Berger

Lawrence (Lonnie) Berger is Director of the Institute for Research on Poverty and Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor and PhD Chair in the School of Social Work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research focuses on the ways in which economic resources, sociodemographic characteristics, and public policies affect parental behaviors and child and family wellbeing.  He is engaged in studies in three primary areas: (1) examining the determinants of substandard parenting, child maltreatment, and out-of-home placement for children; (2) exploring associations among socioeconomic factors (family structure and composition, economic resources, household debt), parenting behaviors, and children’s care, development, and wellbeing; and (3) assessing the influence of public policies on parental behaviors and child and family wellbeing. His work aims to inform public policy in order to improve its capacity to assist families in accessing resources, improving family functioning and wellbeing, and ensuring that children are able to grow and develop in the best possible environments.

separator1

Stacie LeBlanc
Stacie LeBlanc

Stacie LeBlanc is the Executive Director of the New Orleans Children’s Advocacy Center (CAC) and the Audrey Hepburn Children At Risk Evaluation (CARE) Center at Children’s Hospital. In 1990, she joined the Jefferson Parish District Attorney’s Office, where she assisted in the opening of the first CAC in Louisiana, became supervisor of the Felony Child Abuse Division, and began the Family Violence Unit. She has served as an assistant district attorney and overseen CAC operations in urban and rural parishes. Recognizing the necessity of pediatric forensic expertise, she joined the Children’s Hospital’s child abuse program, which has since grown into a multi-physician program that treats an average of 1,000 maltreated children annually and trains pediatric fellows in the field of child abuse. In 2005, LeBlanc was appointed as Assistant Professor of pediatrics for the LSU School of Medicine, assuming operation of the New Orleans and in 2008 joining it with the CARE medical program.  As the chair of the legislative committee for the state Task Force on Child Sexual Abuse, LeBlanc drafted, testified and successfully passed 11 legislative amendments for the protection of children, prosecution of their offenders and protection of mandated reporters. She currently serves as the president of the Louisiana Alliance of Children’s Advocacy Centers and board secretary of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children. LeBlanc has a law degree from Loyola University and a Master’s in early childhood development from the University of New Orleans.

separator1

Doctoral Student Panel and Luncheon Speakers

Saturday, January 14, 12:30 pm – 1:45 pm

“Navigating the Academic Job Market”

Please join us for food, conversation, and networking.  This year’s doctoral student panel will include panelists at various stages of their careers to discuss navigating the job market. 

Sean Joe is currently the Benjamin E. Youngdahl Professor of Social Development at the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis.  Dr. Joe has previously held faculty positions at the University of Michigan and University of Pennsylvania after completing a post-doctoral appointment.

Megan Holmes is an Assistant Professor of Social Work in the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences at Case Western Reserve University.  Dr. Holmes teaches a doctoral level course that prepares students for a successful academic job search.

Anne Hughes is an Associate Professor at the Michigan State School of Social Work and is the author of the award-winning article “Being the Diversity Hire: Negotiating Identity in an Academic Job Search.”

Byron Powell is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Prior to transitioning to UNC in 2015, Dr. Powell was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine.

Gina Fedock is an Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration and graduated with her PhD from Michigan State University in 2015.

The conversation will be moderated by current doctoral students, Karla Arroyo (University of Utah) and Ericka Lewis (Washington University in St. Louis).

separator1

Inaugural Brief and Brilliant Session Speakers

Saturday, January 14, 8:00 am – 9:30 am

In this inaugural Brief and Brilliant session, leading social work scholars will engage the audience through TedX-style talks using images, story-telling and media. Each speaker will complete the statement “I dream a world…” to share the most important ideas facing social work research and practice.

Jennifer Bellamy
Jennifer Bellamy

Jennifer Bellamy is an Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Social Work (GSSW) at the University of Denver. At GSSW she teaches research and theory courses. She received her Master’s of Science in Social Work from The University of Texas at Austin in 2000. Before earning her PhD she worked as a crisis counselor at the University of Texas Counseling and Mental Health Center and as a project coordinator for the Texas Fragile Families Initiative, a statewide demonstration project serving young, unmarried, low-income fathers. She completed her PhD at the Columbia University School of Social Work in 2006 and postdoctoral training at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in Saint Louis 2008. Her current research interests include the engagement of fathers in child and family services, child welfare, and evidence-based practice. She has published extensively in the area of evidence-based social work practice and is currently engaged in the development and testing of interventions to better serve fathers in child and family programs including home visiting and parent training. She also leads the Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR) Special Interest Group (SIG) on Father Research and is a SSWR fellow.

separator1

Tanya L. Sharpe
Tanya L. Sharpe

Tanya L. Sharpe, PhD, MSW, is an Associate Professor at the University of Maryland, School of Social Work.  Dr. Sharpe’s research agenda is focused on coping with violent traumatic death.  Specifically, she examines sociocultural factors that influences the coping strategies of African American family members of homicide victims for the purpose of developing culturally appropriate interventions that can best assist them in their management of grief and bereavement. Dr. Sharpe has developed, implemented and evaluated community-based programs for children and families coping with: interpersonal violence (e.g., homicide, suicide, intimate partner violence, human made and natural disasters). She is a recipient of the Governor of Maryland’s Victim Assistance Award, the NASW Maryland Chapter’s 2016 Social Work Educator of the Year, the Dr. Martin Luther King, Diversity Recognition Award for Outstanding University of Maryland, Baltimore Faculty, and the Dr. Martin Luther King, Special Recognition Award for co-developing a course entitled Freddie Gray-Baltimore: Past, Present and Moving Forward.

separator1

Jeremy Goldbach
Jeremy Goldbach

Jeremy Goldbach joined the USC School of Social Work in 2012 after completing both his master’s and doctoral degrees in social work at The University of Texas at Austin. His work at UT-Austin was funded through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, specializing in prevention science. His research is broadly focused on the relationship between social stigma, stress and health among minority populations. His work seeks to identify and measure stigma, and develop interventions that address these unique determinants of health. He currently holds funding from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development for psychometric instrument development (2014-16); the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (Loan Repayment Program, 2013-17); the Department of Defense to examine the behavioral health needs of active duty LGBT service members (2015-17) as well as to test a neuro-feedback intervention (2016-18); and The Trevor Project to explore pathways of suicidality among LGBTQ youth (2015-16).

separator1

Laina Bay-Cheng
Laina Bay-Cheng

Dr. Laina Bay-Cheng is Associate Professor and PhD Program Director at the University at Buffalo School of Social Work. She earned her PhD from the University at Michigan, completing the joint program in Social Work and Psychology. She joined the School of Social Work in 2005 and has served as PhD Program Director since 2012. Since the beginning of her career, she has concentrated on the social determinants of young women’s sexual well-being. In contrast to the dominant equation of youth sexuality with risk, Dr. Bay-Cheng contends that young women’s vulnerability to negative sexual experiences stems from unjust social norms and material conditions. Reflecting her interdisciplinary background and perspective, she uses diverse theories and methods in her scholarship and publishes in well-regarded journals across disciplines. She is pursuing two lines of questioning in her current research projects: 1) how young women’s sexual experiences, including of unwanted sex, vary at intersections of gender, class, and race; and 2) the impact of neoliberal ideology on constructions of young women’s sexuality. She also continues to collect data using the Sexual Life History Calendar protocol she developed, including a recently completed study using a newly digitized, self-administered version of it.

separator1

Kimberly Bender
Kimberly Bender

Kimberly Bender, PhD, MSW is a Professor of Social Work in the Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Denver. Her research investigates service needs and psychosocial interventions for homeless youth. She has conducted a five-state multi-site research project with homeless youth through shelter, drop-in, and transitional housing services to better understand risk and protective factors in this population. She serves as principle investigator on a 3-year randomized trial of a mindfulness-based cognitive intervention to prevent victimization and substance among shelter youth funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Dr. Bender has published extensively in the areas of substance use, trauma, posttraumatic stress disorder, and broader mental health concerns experienced by homeless youth, earning her the university-wide Distinguished Scholar Award in 2015. In 2014, she was designated Public Good Faculty of the Year in acknowledgement of outstanding commitment to the public good through community-engaged research.

separator1

Invited Symposium I Speakers

Friday, January 13, 1:45 pm – 3:15 pm

“Ensure Healthy Development for all Youth: Unleashing the Power of Prevention”
The Coalition for the Promotion of Behavioral Health

Behavioral health problems in childhood and adolescence take a heavy individual, social, and economic toll on millions of lives. These problems range widely—from anxiety and depression to alcohol, tobacco, and drug abuse; delinquent and violent behavior; dropping out of school; and risky sexual activity and unwanted pregnancies. For decades, the approach to behavioral health problems was to treat them only after they were identified – at a high and ongoing cost to young people, families, and communities. Strong evidence from the past three decades indicates that we can prevent many behavioral health problems before they emerge. In this session, members of the Coalition for the Promotion of Behavioral Health discuss advances in prevention science and outline the goals and strategies of Unleashing the Power of Prevention, an action plan aimed at increasing the use of tested and effective preventive interventions for young people from birth to age 24. Unleashing the Power of Prevention is a central component of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare’s Grand Challenge of Ensure Healthy Development for all Youth.

James Herbert Williams
James Herbert Williams

James Herbert Williams, PhD., is Professor and Distinguished Emil M. Sunley Endowed Chair at the Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Denver. James Herbert’s research and publications focus on human security and economic sustainability, health promotion and disease prevention, behavioral health disparities and health equity, adolescent violence and substance use, mental health services for African American children in urban schools, school safety and violence prevention, and community strategies for positive youth development.  He is President of the Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR) Board of Directors and Editor-in-Chief for Social Work Research. He is a member of the Grand Challenges Executive Committee and previously served as President of the Board of Directors of the National Association of Deans and Directors of Schools of Social Work (NADD).

separator1

J. David Hawkins
J. David Hawkins

J. David Hawkins, PhD, is the Endowed Professor of Prevention and Founding Director of the Social Development Research Group, University of Washington School of Social Work (http://socialwork.uw.edu/faculty/j-david-hawkins). His research focuses on understanding and preventing child and adolescent health and behavior problems. Dr. Hawkins is a current member of both the National Academies’ Board on Children, Youth, and Families and the Forum on Promoting Children’s Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Health.  He is also a member of the American Association of Social Work and Social Welfare Grand Challenges Executive Committee (http://aaswsw.org/grand-challenges-initiative/) and a steering committee member of the Coalition for Promotion of Behavioral Health. He received his PhD in sociology from Northwestern University.

separator1

Jeffrey M. Jenson
Jeffrey M. Jenson

Jeffrey M. Jenson, Ph.D., is the Philip D. and Eleanor G. Winn Professor for Children and Youth at Risk in the Graduate School of Social Work, University of Denver. His research focuses on the application of a public health approach to preventing child and adolescent health and behavior problems and on the evaluation of preventive interventions aimed at promoting positive youth development. Jenson is the recipient of the Aaron Rosen Award from the Society for Social Work and Research and the Distinguished Scholar and University Lecturer awards from the University of Denver. He is the current Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research. Jenson chairs the national Coalition for the Promotion of Behavioral Health, an interdisciplinary group of prevention researchers, policymakers, and practitioners working to promote the use of effective prevention programs and policies. Jenson is a Fellow of the Society for Social Work and Research and a Fellow and board member of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare.

separator1

Richard Catalano
Richard Catalano

Dr. Richard Catalano is the Bartley Dobb Professor for the Study and Prevention of Violence, the co-founder of the Social Development Research Group in the School of Social Work at the University of Washington, President of the Society for Prevention Research, and a steering committee member for the Coalition for the Promotion of Behavioral Health. For over 35 years, he has led research and program development to promote positive youth development and prevent problem behavior. His work has focused on discovering risk and protective factors for positive and problem behavior, designing and evaluating programs to address these factors, and using this knowledge to understand and improve prevention service systems in states and communities. He has served on expert panels for the National Academy of Science, Federal and State government, and foundations. He has published over 350 articles and book chapters. His work has been recognized by practitioners (1996 and 2016 National Prevention Network’s Award of Excellence); criminologists (Fellow of the Academy of Experimental Criminology, 2007 August Vollmer Award from the American Society of Criminology, and 2003 Paul Tappan Award from the Western Society of Criminology); prevention scientists (2001 Prevention Science Award, 2012 Presidential Award from the Society for Prevention Research), and social workers (Fellow in the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare). Dr. Catalano is a member of the Washington State Academy of Sciences. He is the co-developer of the Social Development Model; the parenting programs “Guiding Good Choices,” “Supporting School Success,” “Staying Connected with Your Teen,” and “Focus on Families;” the school-based program, “Raising Healthy Children;” and the community prevention approach, “Communities That Care.”

separator1

Kimberly Bender
Kimberly Bender

Kimberly Bender, Ph.D. is a Professor of Social Work in the Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Denver. Her area of expertise is development and adaptation of interventions to prevent adolescent problem behavior. A majority of her work has narrowed in on psychosocial interventions for homeless youth. She has conducted a five-state multi-site research project with homeless youth through shelter, drop-in, and transitional housing services to better understand risk and protective factors in this population. She serves as principle investigator on a 3-year randomized trial of a mindfulness-based cognitive intervention to prevent victimization and substance among shelter youth funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Dr. Bender has published extensively in the areas of substance use, trauma, posttraumatic stress disorder, and broader mental health concerns experienced by homeless youth, earning her the university-wide Distinguished Scholar Award in 2015. In 2014, she was designated Public Good Faculty of the Year in acknowledgement of outstanding commitment to the public good through community-engaged research. Dr. Bender prioritizes training students as research team members on her community-engaged research projects and has been recognized with several student-nominated awards, including the Excellence in Mentoring Doctoral Students Award in 2013 and again in 2015 and the Excellence in Teaching Award in 2010.

separator1

Valerie B. Shapiro
Valerie B. Shapiro

Valerie Shapiro, PhD, MSS, is an Assistant Professor and Co-Director of the Center for Prevention Research in Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley. She has been a SSWR Dissertation Fellow, Child Intervention, Prevention, & Services (CHIPS) Fellow, and a Hellman Foundation Fellow. She was also the sole recipient of the 2014 Prytanean Faculty Prize, recognized for demonstrated scholarly achievement, distinguished teaching, and success as a role model for students at UC Berkeley. Dr. Shapiro’s research is in the prevention of mental, emotional, and behavioral problems in children and youth. In order to promote the use of effective prevention practice, her scholarship focuses on how to (1) set the stage for communities to adopt and sustain a science-based approach to prevention, (2) implement programs successfully, and (3) assess youth outcomes in routine practice. She serves on the steering committee of the Coalition for the Promotion of Behavioral Health that produced the National Academy of Medicine Discussion Paper entitled “Unleashing the Power of Prevention.” She has presented 14 papers at SSWR between 2010-2016, has reviewed SSWR Conference Proposals (2014-2017), and currently serves as the SIG Chair of the Early Career Faculty Network. She has been recognized by GADE for Leadership and Service to Doctoral Education in Social Work, is a licensed Social Worker, and is a certified School Social Worker.separator1

Mark Fraser
Mark Fraser

Mark Fraser, Ph.D., holds the Tate Distinguished Professorship at the University of North Carolina School of Social Work. His areas of expertise include risk and resilience in childhood, aggressive behavior in early adolescence, roles of social workers in integrated primary care, and the design of social interventions. He has co-authored or edited 9 books and more than 140 journal articles and chapters. Fraser is a Fellow of the American Academy of Social Work and Welfare, the National Academies of Practice, and the Society for Social Work and Research. Mark developed Making Choices, a program to strengthen the social knowledge and skills of children in elementary school. His most recent books are Propensity Score Analysis (2015) and Social Policy for Children and Families: A Risk and Resilience Perspective (2016).

separator1

Invited Symposium II Speakers

Saturday, January 14, 9:45 am – 11:15 am

“Roadmap to Resilience for Youth of Color”

Low-income or resource-poor, urban and rural environments present a number of risk factors leading to deleterious outcomes for youth of color, including school truancy and dropout, compromised physical and behavior health statuses including substance abuse, sexual risk-taking behaviors, or gang involvement.Intervention programs to address these risk factors are plentiful; yet, there is some ways to go to ensure the effectiveness of these approaches across a host of outcomes for youth of color. We will host a panel discussion, via a 90-minute talk show format with follow-up Q & A, to share in the collective wisdom of key scholars whose research address important challenges in intervention science and programing targeting youth of color.In particular, this panel will: (1) Discuss the positive and successful programs that promote development in youth of color and learn how these existing programs can be further innovative to promote sustained success; (2) explore how existing programs might accommodate different environments and communities (suburban, rural; immigrant/refugee; “ethnic”); (3) identify the problems, whether environmental, social, or on the part of systematic failures in the program itself, that hinder the success of youth of color; and (4) promote public, academic, and professional advocacy for successful and positive existing programs through engaged exploration and dialogue.

Michael Lindsey
Michael Lindsey

Dr. Michael Lindsey is the Constance and Martin Silver Associate Professor of Poverty Studies and Director of the McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research at the Silver School of Social Work at New York University. He is a child and adolescent mental health services researcher, and is particularly interested in the prohibitive factors that lead to unmet mental health need among low-income, vulnerable youth with serious psychiatric illnesses, including depression. Dr. Lindsey has received research support from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to examine the social network influences on barriers to mental health care among African American adolescent males with depression. Dr. Lindsey’s current research, funded by NIMH and the Annie E. Casey Foundation, involves the development and test of a treatment engagement intervention that promotes access to and use of mental health services among depressed adolescents in school and community-based treatment. Dr. Lindsey is a member of the Ford Foundation Scholars Network on Masculinity and the Wellbeing of African American Males; the Emerging Scholars Interdisciplinary Network; and the Mental Health Education Integration Consortium. His published research has appeared in the American Journal of Men’s Health, American Journal of Community Psychology, Journal of Adolescent Health, Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, Journal Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, Journal of Black Psychology, General Hospital Psychiatry, Prevention Science, Psychiatric Services, and in the journal Social Work. Dr. Lindsey is currently a standing study section member of the NIMH Services Research Committee, a standing member of the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP) National Advisory Council at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), and a board member-at-large for the Society for Social Work and Research.

Dr. Lindsey holds a PhD in social work and MPH from the University of Pittsburgh; an MSW from Howard University; and a BA in sociology from Morehouse College. He also completed a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in public health at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University.

separator1

Rowena Fong
Rowena Fong

Dr. Rowena Fong, the Ruby Lee Piester Centennial Professor in Services to Children and Families in the School of Social Work at the University of Texas at Austin, is a Fellow of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare (AASWSW) and Founding Co-Chair of the Grand Challenges for Social Work Initiative (GCSWI). She has served nationally as a past President of the Society for Social Work and Research (2009-2013) and is an inaugural Fellow of SSWR. A former member of the Children’s Bureau’s, Child Welfare Evaluation Workgroup, of the US Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Dr. Fong is currently serving as a board member of the North American Council on Adoptable Children and has served as a board member of the National Advisory Board of In-Home Services.

Dr. Fong’s current research focuses on post permanency preservation and supports in public child welfare systems and on transracial and intercountry adoptions. In collaboration with Spaulding for Children in Michigan, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, she is currently the Co-Principal Investigator for the UT portion of $1.65 million dollar, for a 5 year $23.4 million grant (2014-2019), for the National Quality Improvement Center for Adoption and Guardianship Support and Preservation,  funded by the  US Department of Health and Human Services,  Administration for Children and Families, Administration on Children Youth and Families. The grant is to develop evidence-based models of support and intervention that can be replicated or adapted in public child welfare systems for children, who are waiting for adoptive homes as well as for children and families after adoption has been finalized. The long-term expected outcomes are to increase permanency stability, improve behavioral health for children, and improve child and family well-being.

She has over 100 publications, including 10 books: Dettlaff, A. & Fong, R. (Eds.). (2016). Immigrant and Refugee Children and Families: Culturally Responsive Practice. Columbia University Press;  Fong, R. & McRoy, R. (Eds.). (2016). Transracial and intercountry adoption practices and policies: A resource for educators and clinicians. Columbia University Press; Fong, R., Dettlaff, James, J., & Rodriguez, C. (2015). Eliminating racial disproportionality and disparities: Multi systems culturally competent approaches. Columbia University Press; Dettlaff, A. & Fong, R. (Eds.) (2012). Child welfare practice with immigrant children and families. New York: Taylor & Francis Books; C. Franklin & R. Fong (2011). The church leader’s counseling resource book: A guide to mental health and social problems. New York: Oxford University Press; R. Fong, R. McRoy, & C. Ortiz Hendricks, (Eds.). (2006). Intersecting child welfare, substance abuse, and family violence: Culturally competent approaches. Washington, D.C.: Council on Social Work Education; R. Fong, (Ed.). (2004). Culturally competent practice with immigrant and refugee children and families. New York: Guilford Press; M. Smith & R. Fong (2004). Children of neglect: When no one cares. New York: Brunner-Routledge Press; R. Fong, & S. Furuto (Eds.). (2001). Culturally competent social work practice: Skills, interventions and evaluation. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon; and E. Freeman, C. Franklin, R. Fong, G. Shaffer, & E. Timberlake (Eds.). (1998). Multisystem skills and interventions in school social work practice. Washington, D.C.: NASW Press.

Dr. Fong received her BA from Wellesley College, her MSW from UC Berkeley, and her Ed.D. in Human Development from Harvard University.

separator1

Waldo E. Johnson, Jr.
Waldo E. Johnson, Jr.

Waldo E. Johnson, Jr., Ph.D., MSW is Associate Professor at the School of Social Service Administration, with affiliation at the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture of the University of Chicago. A family researcher, his scholarship examines social and environmental factors and contexts on urban Black males’ developmental, physical and mental health statuses and their social role identities, assumption and performance across the life course.

Johnson is Co-Investigator of the Fathers and Sons Program Evaluation Study, a NICHD longitudinal, intervention study aimed at enhancing parent-son bonds between nonresident African American fathers and their 8-12 year old sons residing in Chicago’s Washington Park community and promote positive health behaviors via effective communication, cultural awareness and skill building. Johnson is also Co-Principal Investigator for the Father-Son Communication Project (FSCP), a collaborative research initiative funded by the Joint Research Fund of the Chapin Hall Center and the University of Chicago, aims to generate knowledge about how urban fathers help their sons avoid violence, and proposes to use this knowledge to develop and test curricula designed to enhance fathers’ ability to help their pre-adolescent and adolescent sons (12-20) safely navigate urban spaces. Johnson is also a research consultant with ACF/HHS’ Parent and Children Together (PACT) Study, a longitudinal, mixed-methods evaluation of fatherhood programs, led by Mathematica Policy Research and research and content consultant for South Carolina Educational Television (SCETV)/ PBS upcoming series, Fathers in America.

He is a member of the National Association of Black Social Workers and the Society for Social Work and Research; affiliations include the Scholars Network on Masculinity, 2025 Network for Black Men and Boys, and the APA Public Interest Directorate’s Working Group on Health Disparities in Men and Boys. Johnson is a member of the Illinois Juvenile Justice Leadership Council and the Illinois African American Family Commission. He edited Social Work with African American Males: Health, Mental Health and Social Policy and serves on the board of the Center for Family Policy and Practice in Madison, Wisconsin.

Johnson earned a BA in English and Sociology at Mercer University, MSW at the University of Michigan and Ph.D. in social welfare policy at the University of Chicago. He was a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the Program for Research on Black Americans of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. He has been a visiting scholar at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.

separator1

Mike Spencer
Mike Spencer

Mike Spencer is the Fedele F. Fauri Collegiate Professor of Social Work at the University of Michigan. He is currently serving as a Visiting Professor at the University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine Department of Native Hawaiian Health and the Myron B. Thompson School of Social Work this academic year.  His research examines disparities in physical and mental health and service use of populations of color, as well as interventions for reducing disparities.

He is the Principal Investigator of the REACH Detroit Family Intervention, an NIH-funded, community-based, participatory research (CBPR) project which aims at reducing disparities in type 2 diabetes through the use of community health workers among African American and Latino residents in Detroit. Currently, he is developing research on health disparities with Native Hawaiian communities. Dr. Spencer has been recognized through multiple awards including induction in the Fellows of the Society for Social Work Research (SSWR), induction as a 2016 Fellow of the Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare, selection as the 2014 Council on Social work Education (CSWE) Carl A. Scott Memorial Lecturer for Equity and Social Justice, and election to the SSWR Board.

separator1

Invited Symposium III Speakers

Saturday, January 14, 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm

“School, University, and Community Collaborations to Build Resilience and Improve Children’s Health: The Homewood Approach”

The focus of this session is on how school, community, and university partners can collaborate to support high needs communities in efforts to ameliorate and ultimately eliminate, disparities in children’s health. The presenter, Professor John Wallace, School of Social Work, Katz School of Business, and Department of Sociology – University of Pittsburgh, will discuss current collaborations between the University of Pittsburgh’s Pitt-Assisted Community Schools (PACS) program, the Homewood Children’s Village Community Schools Initiative, and three collaborating Title 1 public schools in the Homewood neighborhood of Pittsburgh.  The session will detail various aspects of, leading, designing and executing this collaboration that leverages community school supports and university resources in order to provide a pipeline of full-service programming that promotes resilience and health among one of the city’s highest need populations.

John M. Wallace, Jr.
John M. Wallace, Jr.

John M. Wallace, Jr., Ph.D. is a professor at the University of Pittsburgh with appointments at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Social Work, the Katz Graduate School of Business and the Dietrich School Arts and Sciences. Dr. Wallace is also the senior pastor of Bible Center Church, located in Pittsburgh’s Homewood neighborhood.

Wallace is the co-principal investigator (with James Huguley) on the Pitt Assisted Communities and Schools (PACS) project, and the principal investigator on the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities funded Healthy Living, Healthy Learning, Healthy Lives Project—a community-based participatory research project that examines the correlates, causes and consequences of disparities in children’s asthma. Dr. Wallace also is a co-investigator on the National Institute on Drug Abuse’s ongoing national study of drug use among American young people, Monitoring the Future.

His current projects focus on ESTEAM (entrepreneurship, science, technology, engineering, agriculture and math) education for children, full-service community schools, and the creation of social enterprises to address food access and insecurity, youth unemployment and other pressing social problems.

Dr. Wallace’s work has appeared in numerous professional journals, books and monographs. He earned his BA from the University of Chicago and MA and PhD degrees from the University of Michigan, all in sociology.

separator1

Fred Brown
Fred Brown

Fred Brown serves as the President & CEO of the Homewood Children’s Village, a non-profit organization whose mission is to simultaneously improve the lives of Homewood’s children and to reweave the fabric of the community in which they live. HCV serves over 1,000 youth a day in grades K-12.

 

 

 

separator1

Esohe Osai
Esohe Osai

Esohe Osai serves as Director of Services for Pitt-Assisted Communities and Schools (PACS). She operates as a liaison in the community and is responsible for strategically deploying and coordinating university resources in the program’s partner schools. Her background is in education, community development and youth development.  Osai is a former high school teacher, having received a B.A. in Education from the University of Michigan. She also has Master’s degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a Ph.D. in education and psychology from the University of Michigan.

 

 

 

separator1

James P. Huguley
James P. Huguley

Dr. James P. Huguley is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Social Work and Center on Race and Social Problems.  His research focuses on school-based psychosocial interventions that promote racial equity and positive developmental outcomes. Dr. Huguley’s current work includes investigating racially equitable approaches to school climate and discipline, examining the benefits of ethnocentric parenting practices on African American youth outcomes; and serving as a faculty lead for Pitt-Assisted Communities and Schools, a project that seeks to bring evidence based programs and holistic university-based supports to high need schools and communities.  Dr. Huguley is both a former youth program director and middle school teacher.  He received his bachelors in English and Secondary Education from Providence College, and both his masters in Risk and Prevention and doctorate in Human Development and Psychology from Harvard University.

separator1

Opening Plenary Session Speaker

Thursday, January 12, 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm

“Nothing About Us, Without Us: Youth Speak Out About What Researchers Should Know About Youth”

Irrespective of complex, but necessary, IRB issues, engaging youth in research inquiry requires unique skills that some researchers may not have fully considered.   The engagement of youth as partners in research and evaluation efforts is relatively new.  The underlying philosophy of the positive youth development movement has influenced scholars and practitioners to include youth as partners in the design and implementation of research involving issues that affect their lives. Engaging youth in research and evaluation not only generates useful knowledge for communities and individuals but also provides opportunities for the development and empowerment of youth participants, leading to benefits for young people, organizations, the broader community, and the research process.

Utilizing the voices of young people from child welfare, juvenile justice, and school systems, this plenary will facilitate a dialogue between young people and researchers to encourage and provoke thoughtful examination of the core issues that researchers should consider when engaging youth in scholarly inquiry.

Gerald P. Mallon
Gerald P. Mallon

Gerald P. Mallon, DSW, is the Julia Lathrop Professor of Child Welfare, the Associate Dean of Research and the Executive Director of the National Center for Child Welfare Excellence at the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College in New York City.

For more than 41 years, Dr. Mallon has been a child welfare practitioner, advocate, educator, and researcher. Dr. Mallon was the first child welfare professional in the country to research, write about, and develop programs for LGBTQ youth in child welfare settings.

Dr. Mallon’s scholarship and practice has been recognized through multiple awards including The Judge Richard Ware Award – Louisiana Children’s Trust Fund; The New York State Citizens Coalition for Children Advocacy Award, the Hosteter-Habib Award, Family Equality Council; the Child Advocate of the Year Award – North American Council on Adoptable and induction in 2014 as a Fellow of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare. He serves on numerous editorial boards and is the Senior Editor of the professional journal, Child Welfare and the author or editor of more than twenty-four books. His most recent publications, are Child welfare for the twenty-first century: A Handbook of practices, policies, and programs (2nd edition), co-Edited with Peg Hess, published by Columbia University Press and Lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans foster and adoptive parents: Recruiting, assessing, and supporting untapped family resources for children and youth (2nd ed.) published by the Child Welfare League of America in 2015.

In his role as the Executive Director of the NCCWE, Dr. Mallon has traveled to all 50 states, many territories and numerous tribes to deliver technical assistance and training on a range of child welfare related issues particularly as they relate to youth and to foster care.

Dr. Mallon has lectured and worked extensively throughout the United States, and internationally in Australia, Canada, Cuba, Indonesia, Ireland, and the United Kingdom.

Dr. Mallon earned his doctorate in Social Welfare from the City University of New York at Hunter College, holds an MSW from Fordham University and a BSW from Dominican College.

Dr. Mallon also lives the talk he talks, in addition to being a child welfare professional for his entire career, he has been a foster parent and is the adoptive parent of now grown children.

separator1

Presidential Plenary Speaker

Saturday, January 14, 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm

Jeffrey Brown
Jeffrey Brown

Rev. Jeffrey Brown was one of the key architects behind the “Boston Miracle,” which saw the violent crime rate among youth plummet by 79% over a decade. Today, he works with faith groups, cities, government, and police to stop gang violence as the president of RECAP and co-founder of My City at Peace. He speaks on “collaborative leadership,” community building, and what it takes to institute real change in organizations of all stripes.

At TED 2015, Rev. Jeffrey Brown’s keynote garnered a standing ovation—and has since been viewed over 1 million times. Rev. Brown is currently the president of RECAP, which stands for Rebuilding Every Community Around Peace. He is also a co-founder of the Boston Ten Point Coalition, a faith-based group that was an integral part of the famous “Boston Miracle,” during which the city experienced a 79% decline in violent crime among youth from 1990 to 1999. The efforts also spawned countless urban collaborative efforts in subsequent years, and was widely covered in the press.

Rev. Brown consults municipalities and police departments (and policing initiatives) nationwide on issues around youth violence and community mobilization. He helps rebuild trust between neighborhoods and police departments, speaking with officers to strengthen their ties to the communities they serve. He has worked with the US State Department on Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) initiatives, based on his nationally recognized success with developing robust violence prevention and intervention strategies. As part of the Society for Organizational Learning North America, Rev. Brown also assists the World Bank, IMF, and IFC with senior leadership development and learning, teaching cutting-edge models for leadership, problem solving, flexibility, and adaptability.

As co-founder of My City at Peace—a community-based, collaborative organization that builds alliances between conflicting constituencies to find peace and end violence—Rev. Brown has also been working with housing authorities to rebuild communities in distressed areas and avoid the more damaging effects of gentrification. In order to attract buyers, while still retaining low-income residents, Brown argues for a combination of market-rate, affordable, and Section 8 housing.

separator1

RCDC Research Roots & Wings Roundtable 1 Speakers

Friday, January 13, 9:45 am – 11:15 am

“Growing Roots through Mentoring”

Building student and early career scholars’ research capacity is not predicated on the one-way transmission and passive receipt of concrete skills and knowledge. Instead, research capacity development occurs through the ongoing exchange and refinement of questions, ideas, and strategies. Mentors play an undeniably critical role this process, serving as a primary conduit to essential tangible resources (funding, space, equipment, supplies) and equally vital intangible opportunities (knowledge and training, presentations and publications, professional networking and career advice). Ideally, this relationship is mutually fruitful, insofar as it stimulates new ideas and results in shared products, and mutually meaningful, insofar as it provides mentors with outlets for generativity and mentees with sources of guidance. The expert insight from this session’s invited participants will help ground and guide a roundtable conversation of the mechanics, chemistry, and promise of mentoring for social work research and researchers. Specific points for discussion include: mentoring – and being mentored – as a skillset; diverse forms and types of mentors, including natural mentors and peer mentors; the impact of mentoring networks on the lives and careers of minority-status researchers; and the intellectual and professional value of mentoring across disciplines.

Laina Bay-Cheng
Laina Bay-Cheng

Dr. Laina Y. Bay-Cheng is Associate Professor and PhD Program Director at the University at Buffalo School of Social Work. Her work concentrates on the social determinants of young women’s sexual well-being. In contrast to the dominant equation of youth sexuality with risk, she contends that young women’s vulnerability to negative sexual experiences stems from unjust social norms and material conditions. She builds this argument using a wide range of theories and methods and publishes in journals across disciplines. This diversity reflects her interdisciplinary background: she majored in psychology and women’s studies at Wellesley College and earned her MSW and PhD through the University of Michigan’s joint doctoral program (Social Work & Psychology) while affiliated with UM’s Institute for Research on Women & Gender. She has benefitted deeply from interdisciplinary mentoring – as a recipient and as a provider – throughout her career, and is currently launching an interdisciplinary mentoring network at the University at Buffalo.

separator1

Stephanie Robert
Stephanie Robert

Dr. Stephanie Robert is Professor and Director of the School of Social Work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research examines how social factors impact health over the life course – research that demonstrates how social policy is health policy. Much of her research has focused on how neighborhood context contributes to health and well-being and to socioeconomic and racial disparities in health, particularly at older ages. She has been co-Director of the RWJF Health & Society Scholars Program for over a decade, training fellows from all fields to conduct transdisciplinary population health research and to translate research into policy and practice. Dr. Robert has awards for both her research and her mentoring. She is a master trainer with NIH’s National Research Mentoring Network. As a part of this network, she has adapted a research mentor training to improve faculty mentorship of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in the social sciences and interdisciplinary sciences.

separator1

Gina Miranda Samuels
Gina Miranda Samuels

Dr. Gina Miranda Samuels is an Associate Professor at the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration and a Faculty Affiliate of the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture. Her research focuses on relational permanence, belonging, identity, and kinship among young adults whose childhoods are shaped by foster care, adoption and multiraciality. Professor Miranda Samuels’ makes use of interpretive methods of research to inform foster care and adoption practice and policy. Her most current scholarship advances a model of cultural attunement for social work practice with multiracial families. Dr. Miranda Samuels is also leading the qualitative component of a national mixed model research project, Voices of Youth Count. This study, the largest of its kind, uses narrative life course methods to interview young persons ages 13-25 across the United States to understand varied trajectories of housing instability and the social ecologies that shape these experiences. In over 20 years of teaching social work practice and research, she has mentored over 30 doctoral students and teaches direct social work practice, family systems theory and interpretive research methods to masters and doctoral students. She has practiced in the area of child welfare, juvenile probation, and Africentric models of education intervention. Dr. Miranda Samuels received her MSW and PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Social Work and Social Welfare.

separator1

Renée Spencer
Renée Spencer

Dr. Renée Spencer, EdD, LICSW, is Professor and Chair of Human Behavior at the Boston University School of Social Work. She specializes in the study of youth mentoring and the creation of innovative, effective approaches to improve outcomes for young people, parents and guardians. She is widely known among mentoring researchers and practitioners for her careful qualitative analysis of long-term mentoring relationships and mentoring relationships that are potentially problematic or negative. She has also published on the important issue of ethics in youth mentoring. An active member on numerous national boards, she has published more than 50 articles and book and has received major grants supporting her research from a variety of sources, including the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education and the William T. Grant Foundation (Scholar Award).

separator1

Grace Gowdy
Grace Gowdy

Grace Gowdy, MSW, is a doctoral candidate at the Boston University School of Social Work. Her scholarly interests center on varying forms of mentoring and how they may help youth transition to adulthood. Her dissertation work focuses on informal relationships between youth and non-parental adults. Before returning to school, Grace founded and managed a collegiate retention program for students who had aged out of foster care, where she first noticed the power of mentoring on positive outcomes. Outside of her research agenda, Grace has promoted mentoring through her participation on the SSWR Research Capacity and Development Committee and as co-chair of the SSWR Doctoral Student Taskforce Mentoring Workgroup. At the Boston University School of Social Work, Grace was a founding member of the Social Work Action Group, which, in part, pairs incoming doctoral students with step-ahead peer mentors.

separator1

RCDC Research Roots & Wings Roundtable 2 Speakers

Saturday, January 14, 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm

“Spreading Wings through Alternative Dissertations”

The purpose of this roundtable, co-sponsored by SSWR’s Research Capacity Development Committee and the Group for the Advancement of Doctoral Education in Social Work (GADE), will be to discuss how the dissertation fits within the shifting landscape of social work research, and whether alternative dissertation formats might be an option for aligning social work doctoral education with twenty-first century social work research. The roundtable presenters will first discuss the strengths and limitations of the traditional dissertation in the current context. Many other fields have embraced alternative dissertation formats, and the alternative dissertation is the focus of much debate in national organizations, such as the Council on Graduate Schools. The roundtable presenters will discuss examples of the range of alternative dissertation formats, explore how these formats fit with the research capacity development needs of social work PhD students, and discuss implications of alternative dissertation formats for twenty-first century social work research. The roundtable will provide an opportunity for a lively discourse among attendees, and for doctoral students, doctoral educators and others to share their own perspectives on the future of the doctoral dissertation in social work education.

Elizabeth Lightfoot
Elizabeth Lightfoot

Elizabeth Lightfoot is a Professor at the University of Minnesota’s School of Social Work. She has been on faculty at the University of Minnesota since 1999 and has been the doctoral program director there since 2006.  Her current research focuses on the intersections of disability and child welfare, and she has conducted a number of studies about how the child welfare policy system impacts services to children and adults with disabilities, and most recently is studying the prevalence of parents with disabilities within child welfare. She also is currently involved in several community based participatory research projects related to refugee health, and has an ongoing partnership with several community groups that are interested in developing asset based approaches to health prevention among refugees and immigrants, particularly from East Africa. She has taught doctoral seminars in policy and research for sixteen years, and has advised twenty-four doctoral students. She is currently the President of the Group for the Advanced for Doctoral Education (GADE), the Secretary of the Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR), and a Board Member of the Council of Social Work Education.

separator1

Margaret Adamek
Margaret Adamek

Margaret Adamek, PhD, is a Professor and Director of the PhD Program in Social Work at Indiana University in Indianapolis, IN.  As a Hartford Geriatric Social Work Faculty Scholar, she examined issues related to depression among long-term care residents.  Her research interests include elder suicide, issues facing elders in developing countries, and scholarly writing. Dr. Adamek earned her BS in Social Work in 1982 from the University of Dayton, her MSW from Washington University in 1983, and her PhD from Case Western Reserve University in 1989.   She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan focused on applied issues in aging research.  Dr. Adamek was awarded a Fulbright in 2012-2013 and spent 10 months in Ethiopia working with doctoral students at Addis Ababa University.

separator1

Beverly Black
Beverly Black

Dr. Beverly Black, holds the Jillian Michelle Smith endowed Professorship in the School of Social Work at University of Texas at Arlington and serves as the director of the school’s doctoral program. She previously held faculty positions at Florida International University and Wayne State University. Dr. Black conducts research and publishes on issues related to domestic violence, sexual assault, adolescent dating violence, and prevention programming. She has long been active in social work education, including serving on the council on the status of women and currently serves on CSWE’s Commission on Accreditation. Since joining GADE she has participated on several committees including the Student Awards Committee, Website and Marketing Committee, Conference Planning Committee and on the Quality Doctoral Education Survey Committee. She currently serves as treasurer of GADE.

separator1

Laina Bay-Cheng
Laina Bay-Cheng

Laina Y. Bay-Cheng is Associate Professor and PhD Program Director at the University at Buffalo School of Social Work.  Her work concentrates on the social determinants of young women’s sexual well-being. In contrast to the dominant equation of youth sexuality with risk, she contends that young women’s vulnerability to negative sexual experiences stems from unjust social norms and material conditions. Reflecting her interdisciplinary background and perspective, she uses diverse theories and methods and publishes in journals across disciplines. Through her service as PhD program director, she seeks to create intellectual and professional conditions that will enable emerging social work scholars to advance social justice through new ideas, methods, collaborations, and pathways.

separator1

Cynthia Franklin
Cynthia Franklin

Dr. Cynthia Franklin is the Stiernberg/Spencer Family Professor in Mental Health and Associate Dean for Doctoral Education at The University of Texas at Austin.  Dr. Franklin holds two prominent international leadership positions as the President-Elect for The Group for Advancement of Doctoral Education in Social Work and the Editor-in-Chief for the Encyclopedia of Social Work.  She has over 200 publications and national and international presentations. Dr. Franklin’s research focuses on meta-analyses on school mental health services, and intervention studies and systematic reviews on school social work and solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT). Over the past twenty-five years Dr. Franklin has worked with practitioners and researchers across different nations to develop research on SFBT resulting in the recognition of SFBT as an evidence-based practice.

separator1

Sydney Hans
Sydney Hans

Sydney Hans is the Samuel Deutsch Professor at the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago. For over a decade, she has been the director of the doctoral program at SSA. She has chaired more than two dozen dissertation committees.  Professor Hans’s research seeks to understand how experiences in early life, particularly the relationship between mother and young child, influence development, risk, and resilience throughout the life course. She has conducted studies focusing on the development of young children whose parents use illicit substances, suffer from major mental disorders, have experienced traumatic events, and/or live in conditions of extreme poverty. She is particularly interested in using research to develop interventions and public policy that will benefit infants, young children, and their families. She currently is engaged in implementing and evaluating intervention programs in which paraprofessional “doulas” provide childbirth education and support to adolescent mothers. Professor Hans’ has a bachelor’s degree in Human Development and Family Studies from Cornell University and a PhD in Psychology and Social Relations from Harvard University.

separator1

Peter Maramaldi
Peter Maramaldi

Peter Maramaldi, PhD, MPH, LCSW, is currently a Professor and the Director of the PhD Program at the Simmons School of Social Work in Boston. He also holds faculty appointments at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences and the Harvard School of Dental Medicine in Oral Health Policy and Epidemiology, where he teaches and works as a behavioral scientist. Dr. Maramaldi mentors pre- and post-doctoral trainees in research projects that range from population studies of gene-environment interactions to the development and testing of behavioral interventions. He also teaches courses on patient interviewing and interdisciplinary collaboration at the Harvard Medical School. Dr. Maramaldi has received several awards for mentoring doctoral students and promoting the careers of new faculty. In addition to extensive teaching and working across disciplines and professions, he serves on multiple national initiatives in social work, and has had consistent NIH or foundation funding since 2002 for his interprofessional work in evidence-based health promotion. Dr. Maramaldi’s current work includes two NIH-NIDCR funded studies, one promoting patient safety, and another using implementation science to improve providers’ use of dental diagnostic codes. His previous work in health promotion ranges from a past HIH-NINR-funded RCT testing motivational interviewing to promote colorectal cancer screening, to a NIDCR-funded study of oral cancer screening in nursing homes, to a foundation-funded demonstration project that used behavioral interventions to successfully reduce early childhood caries in high-risk populations of children who were under five years of age. Dr. Maramaldi has decades of community and clinical experience serving and collaborating with culturally and economically diverse populations in New York City, where he earned MSSW, MPH, and PhD degrees at Columbia University.

Scroll to Top