Daphne Watkins Named Letha A. Chadiha Collegiate Professor

Daphne Watkins was appointed as the Letha A. Chadiha Collegiate Professor of Social Work. Watkins is the founding director of the Gender and Health Research (GendHR) Lab, the Certificate Program in Mixed Methods Research, and the award-winning Young Black Men, Masculinities, and Mental Health (YBMen) Project, which leverages technology to provide mental health education and social support for young Black men.

Watkins’ research focuses on how gender differences and health disparities influence the mental health of Black Americans, with the aim of increasing what we know about mental disorders and how they impact the health and health behaviors of Black men. She has built an interdisciplinary conceptual framework of mental health that integrates role socialization and intersectional understanding of the cultural positions of Black men given additional other social identities of age, education, ethnicity, social support, and life stress. Watkins is also a University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor.