Faculty

Katie Doyle teaches courses in leadership and management of social impact organizations. Prior to joining the faculty, Doyle was the Executive Director of Ozone House Youth and Family Services in Ypsilanti, MI. This award-winning, 50-year-old nationally recognized nonprofit provides 24-hour crisis intervention, shelter, housing, social support, therapy and case management to help thousands of youth experiencing homelessness and human trafficking as well as LGBTQ+ youth and their families lead safe, healthy and productive lives.

Professor Ruth Dunkle's research, teaching, and clinical practice focus on gerontology. Recent research projects include "Mothers of Adult Daughters with a Serious Mental Illness: The Experience of African Americans and Whites" and "An Historical Perspective of Social Service Delivery in Detroit in the Twentieth Century." Since 1988, Professor Dunkle has served as a project co-director of the National Institute on Aging training program, "Social Research Training on Applied Issues of Aging," with Professor Berit Ingersoll-Dayton.

Katie Edwards, PhD, focuses on preventing and responding to sexual and related forms of violence among structurally minoritized populations using community-based participatory action research. Current work is focused on program development and evaluation with Indigenous youth and communities as well as LGBTQ2S+ youth in online spaces. Edwards highly values community leadership and engaging students, postdocs and early career scholars as co-leaders in research that seeks to make communities safe, equitable and inclusive for all.

Linda Edwards-Brown, LMSW, is a distinguished social work educator, civic leader and advocate for youth and families. She began her career with the Washtenaw County Trial Court, where she served in various capacities before retiring in 2020 as the juvenile division administrator, a role she held for over two decades. Her work in juvenile justice reflects a deep commitment to protecting and empowering children, whom she considers a community’s most valuable resource.

Abigail Eiler, MSW '06, is a licensed clinical social worker and educator with 20 years of experience working in tribal and non-tribal communities across the country and in Canada. In 2014, Eiler started as a LEO Lecturer at the University of Michigan School of Social Work and joined the governing faculty in May 2018 as a clinical assistant professor. She was promoted to clinical associate professor in September 2023 and became the Director of Undergraduate Minor Programs in August 2023.

Nehal Eldeeb (she/her) received her MSW from the University of Pennsylvania and PhD from the School of Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley. Her scholarship is dedicated to preventing child maltreatment and promoting the healthy development of children and youth through positive parenting. Specifically, Eldeeb's research seeks to understand, develop and evaluate user-centered interventions seeking to provide high-quality and just-in-time information to caregivers.

Professor William Elliott is a leading researcher in the fields of college savings accounts, college debt, and wealth inequality. Shaped by his personal roots in poverty in a small steel mill city in Pennsylvania, Professor Elliott pursues challenging individual beliefs and cultural values that surround funding for college, student debt, inequality, systemic patterns of poverty, and educational justice. Being refined in poverty allows him to approach questions in his research differently.

Dr. James M. Ellis’s research investigates relationships between education pipeline experiences and racial-ethnic and low-income student pathways to college enrollment and degree completion. His’ scholarship examines the nexus between college readiness program participation, developmental approaches to college readiness, social support from peers and adults and racism and discrimination in education settings. Dr. Ellis utilizes an interdisciplinary approach to carry out his research program and has methodological expertise in quantitative and qualitative methods and designs.

Katrina R. Ellis is an associate professor at the School of Social Work. Her research interests include family health interventions, cancer survivorship, racial and ethnic disparities in health, and family management of chronic health conditions. An overarching goal of her research is to support the health of families facing multiple, coexisting illnesses, with a specific focus on African Americans. Dr. Ellis employs a range of qualitative and quantitative methodologies in her work with families, clinicians and community groups.