Faculty News

Professor Rich Tolman and the Michigan Father Practitioner Network have received a grant from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation aimed to increase the capacity of Michigan programs that engage and deliver services to fathers, improve the well-being of their children and support father involvement.

Professor Joe Ryan was quoted in the Michigan Chronicle about new protocols set by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services as part of their Keep Kids Safe Action Agenda. 

“MDHHS demonstrates a strong commitment to data-driven decisions to help keep children safe and guide the development of services for families,” he said. “Department actions such as increasing the number of family resource centers that provide critical services to vulnerable families and expanding home visiting programs are examples of efforts that are evidence-based and designed to strengthen families and help protect children in Michigan.”

Assistant Professor Lindsay Bornheimer and Research Project Coordinator Juliann Li Verdugo received a 2023 Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) Outstanding Research Mentor Award. 

Each year, UROP recognizes outstanding mentors who have exceeded expectations in providing opportunities and guidance to their UROP students. These exceptional mentors demonstrate an interest in the college experiences, academic goals and career plans of their students.

Bornheimer and Li Verdugo were nominated by their undergraduate student, Natasha Matta, and were honored during the UROP Spring Research Symposium.

Professor Luke Shaefer spoke with Michigan Advance about Rx Kids, a new program in Flint, Michigan, which will work to improve residents’ health by alleviating poverty in the state’s poorest city. The program, which is likely to begin in 2024, specifically focuses on maternal and infant health outcomes at a community level; every Flint resident who is pregnant will be eligible to receive direct cash payments during their pregnancy and throughout the first year of their child’s life. RxKids is a collaboration between Michigan State University and University of Michigan. Shaefer, who is the director of U-M’s Poverty Solutions, is working on the program’s launch.

“This is something where Flint becomes a leader for the nation; that’s a really powerful thing,” Shaefer said. “We’ve already spent time at the White House, at the U.S. Capitol, in Lansing, and I’ve never had a project like this where people get this happy,” Shaefer said. “I’ve been working in poverty for a long time, and I think the design of this and values imbued in it are fundamentally different than other efforts.” 

Shaefer also discussed the program with WKAR, Vigourtimes and Yahoo! News.

Field Faculty Yatesha Robinson has been selected as a 2023 Michigan Road Scholar. The annual Michigan Road Scholar Tour is a five-day traveling seminar through the state of Michigan for U-M faculty. The tour provides a unique opportunity for faculty to learn more about the state’s economy, government, geography, educational systems, history and the diverse communities and cultures. The experience encourages public service and collaboration for the benefit of all Michiganders. This year’s tour takes place during the first week of May.

Assistant Professor Lindsay Bornheimer was an invited faculty speaker at the Albert J. Silverman Conference in the Department of Psychiatry this week. She spoke about her study in a presentation on "Adapting a Cognitive Behavioral Suicide  Prevention Treatment for Adults with Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders in Community Mental Health.”

Lecturer Laura Sanders’ work with animal-assisted therapy (AAT) at her farm is featured in Crazy Wisdom Journal. “Instead of vegetables, we produce mental health,” she says.

Sanders describes her approach to AAT and how she uses it to teach relationship-building with social work students.

Professor Matt Smith’s research was cited in the MIT Technology Review on the potential of using virtual reality as a therapeutic tool, specifically for incarcerated individuals. Smith originally developed Molly, a virtual-reality tool for job interview training, for underserved groups. Molly was used in a pilot program with 44 men involved with the justice system. The findings showed that 82% of those who used the tool landed a job within six months of being released, compared with 69% of other program participants.

“Above just the employment rate, those that interviewed with Molly had stronger interview skills over time, greater reductions in interview anxiety over time, and greater increase in motivation to interview over time,” said Smith.