Faculty

Karla Goldman's research focuses on the history of the American Jewish experience with special attention to the history of American Jewish communities and the evolving roles and contributions of American Jewish women. She directs the University of Michigan Jewish Communal Leadership Program, a collaborative effort between the School of Social Work and the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies.

Odessa Gonzalez Benson, PhD, MSW, is an associate professor at the School of Social Work and Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, and a faculty affiliate with the LSA International Institute Center for Southeast Asian Studies. Her areas of research are refugee resettlement, state-civil society relations (regarding migration), labor migration, critical policy studies and epistemic justice and the production of knowledge in social welfare studies and forced migration studies, with three broad aspects to her research.

Kathy Greening has focused her social work career on the welfare of children and families. She has worked as a child and family therapist, intake and assessment specialist, clinical supervisor, and program coordinator in children’s mental health settings. She has prepared families to adopt children and provided developmental assessment and intervention for infants to preschool-aged children, their families and caregivers. She has 20 years of experience as an MDE-approved school social worker, providing assessment and intervention for children in need of special education in public schools.

Andrew (Andy) Grogan-Kaylor's research focuses on scientific knowledge development and intervention research with children and families, with the aim of reducing violence against children and improving family and child well-being. Grogan-Kaylor's current research projects examine parenting behaviors such as physical punishment and parental expressions of emotional warmth and support, and their effects on children's aggression, antisocial behavior, anxiety and depression.

Professor Emerita Lorraine Gutiérrez held a joint appointment with the School of Social Work (SSW) and Department of Psychology at the University of Michigan and was a faculty associate in American Culture. She also was a member of the SSW Community Organization Learning Community. Her teaching and scholarship focuses on multicultural praxis in communities, organizations and higher education. She brings to her work community-based practice and research in multiethnic communities in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Detroit and Seattle.

Greer Hamilton (she/her) is an assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Social Work. As a place-based researcher, her work seeks to examine how systems of oppression are embedded into the built environment and subsequently impact people’s health, well-being and use of public spaces. Her work often uses community-engaged, arts-based and embodied approaches to understand study participants’ experiences with places of meaning (e.g., neighborhoods).

Jennifer Heckendorn, MSW’07 is a geriatric social worker who specializes in consultation and therapy for aging individuals, caregivers and family members through her private practice, Heckendorn Consultation and Therapy, PLLC. Heckendorn is also experienced in assisting families with issues related to placement, medicare/medicaid, advanced directives and end of life care.

Grace Helms Kotre (she/her), MSW ’07, is passionate about integrating contemplative practices into social justice education. She is committed to unlearning systemic whiteness and employing anti-racist and anti-oppressive pedagogies. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in social work, community action and social change, and radical self- and collective care. She is a Certified Mindfulness Instructor with a daily meditation practice since 2009, and she has been engaged in social justice community organizing, advocacy and education since 2006.

Dr. Herrenkohl’s primary research interests focus on the areas of child and family well-being, child maltreatment and the psychosocial and developmental underpinnings of health-risk behaviors in youth and adults; substance use, mental and physical health outcomes of adversity; and resilience. He has also worked to raise awareness of the causes and consequences of violence in children and families and to promote the use of public health models of primary prevention.