Faculty News

Assistant Professor Ashley Cureton has been named a 2022 Public Engagement Faculty Fellow by the U-M Center for Academic Innovation. The cohort of 14 fellows will participate in an intensive program designed to build engagement skills, understand key public-engagement concepts and reflect together on how public engagement fits into their scholarly identities.

"This program will help me to reflect on how public engagement fits into my scholarly identity. I am committed to considering the breadth of ways that my research creates public impact, from designing exhibits to working with policymakers to conducting community-engaged research projects to develop interventions and programs and to amplify the voices of refugee populations in the U.S. and abroad," said Cureton.

Youth Engagement through Cannabis Prevention and Employment Training

Faculty Member: Associate Professor Cristina Bares

Community Partner: Kartav Patel, Manager of Youth Services, Southwest Economic Services

Welcome to the Motor City: Exploring Refugee Resettlement Among Afghan Refugees and Beyond

Faculty Member: Assistant Professor Ashley Cureton

Community Partner:  Shadin Adityeh, Director of Employment and Economic Empowerment Programs, Jewish Family Services of Washtenaw County and Detroit

Tuxedo Project Community Map

Faculty Member: Lecturer Maureen Okasinski

Community Partner: Rose Gorman, Executive Director, The Tuxedo Project

Enacting Action Goals Informed by HOMES Survey: Services and Options for LGBTQ+ Older Adults in Metro Detroit

Faculty Member: Associate Professor Beth Glover Reed

Partner: Angela Gabridge, Executive Director, Sage Metro Detroit

Linda Chatters co-edited Volume 41 of the Annual Review of Gerontology and Geriatrics: Black Older Adults in the Era of Black Lives Matter. Katrina Ellis, James Ellis, and Robert Joseph Taylor contributed book chapters. The book represents an important moment in the development and maturation of research and scholarship on Black older adults that builds on the many contributions of prior generations of eminent African American gerontologists.

Associate Dean for Research and Innovation and Professor of Social Work Rogério Meireles Pinto has been appointed the Berit Ingersoll-Dayton Collegiate Professor of Social Work. Pinto’s community-based participatory research aims to improve access to social work and public health services, particularly those services at the intersection of health and well-being. He examines how transdisciplinary collaboration and practitioners’ involvement in research improves the delivery of evidence-based services. He also studies factors that influence ethnic and sexual minority women’s involvement in research and health care.

Seven U-M SSW faculty are included on Stanford University’s 2021 World's Top 2% Scientists list. The database provides standardized information on citations, h-index, co-authorship-adjusted hm-index, citations to papers in different authorship positions, and a composite indicator.

• Linda Chatters
• Lorraine Gutiérrez
• Todd Herrenkohl
• Joseph Ryan
• Robert Taylor
• Richard Tolman
• Bradley Zebrack

Assistant Professor Sunggeun (Ethan) Park has been elected treasurer of the Society for Social Work and Research. In his vision statement, Park listed the following goals: maintaining fiscal accountability and responsibility; promoting inclusive and transparent fiscal decision-making processes and representing the voices of early-stage scholars with marginalized identities and interests. Park will begin his term on February 1.

Professor Brad Zebrack has received the American Psychosocial Oncology Society’s Ruth McCorkle Excellence in Research Mentorship Award.  The award honors those who have demonstrated a longstanding commitment to nurturing intellectual growth, career development, professional guidance and positive role modeling in the field of psychosocial oncology.

Assistant Professor Fernanda Cross is featured on Deutsche Welle (DW) website. The article explores her journey to the U.S. and her research at U-M School of Social Work. “It is as an immigrant that Cross finds the necessary empathy for her work. As a researcher, she analyzes precisely the insertion of Latin American immigrants in the United States.”