Faculty News

Assistant Professor Lisa Fedina, Associate Professor Kristin Seefeldt, and Professor Rich Tolman all have projects selected to participate in U-M’s newly launched Boost program. Part of U-M’s Bold Challenges Initiative, the Boost program supports new and early-stage multidisciplinary teams whose ambitious, transdisciplinary projects have substantial potential for significant large-scale funding.

Fedina and Tolman’s interdisciplinary team’s project explores “Building Trustworthy Environments: Advancing Knowledge about Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in Universities, Healthcare, and Communities.” Seefeld is part of the interdisciplinary team studying “Community Tech Workers: Advancing a Sustainable Vision for Small Business Tech Support in Detroit."

Greer Hamilton is a place-based researcher who examines how systems of oppression are embedded into the built environment and how they thus impact individuals’ health, well-being and use of public spaces. As a researcher, she uses community-engaged and arts-based approaches to understand study participants’ experiences with places. Prior to her work as a researcher, she worked in Buffalo, New York for nonprofits focused on health inequities and community capacity building.

Of her decision to come to the University of Michigan School of Social Work, Hamilton said, “It was important to me to be in a school committed to community-engaged and arts-based research and teaching. Commitment to these is evident in the work of the university at large and also in the work of the faculty, staff, and students of the School of Social Work. I am excited to be a part of a community so dedicated to using creative approaches to address social issues.”

Hamilton holds a BA in Health and Human Services and a Master of Social Work degree from the University of Buffalo (New York), and a PhD in Social Work from the Boston University School of Social Work.

M. Candace Christensen’s research takes a critical feminist approach to community-engaged, qualitative, arts-based research methodologies that prevent and respond to gendered, racial and anti-LGBTQ+ violence. Their commitment to this approach is grounded in their positionalities as a Femme genderqueer, poly-sexual, artist-activist and survivor of sexual violence. They aim to deconstruct paradigms and practices that perpetuate power-based violence and to build cultures focused on self-determination, a sense of connection and mutual empowerment. They use Theatre of the Oppressed to construct sexual violence prevention interventions, and they have experience with community-based theatre, sexual violence-prevention activism, queer liberation and racial justice, and with helping students implement creative approaches to social work practice. Their recent work focuses on queer and trans youth development. 

“I came to the U-M School of Social Work because the school values arts-based social justice research,” Christensen said. “Using the arts in research, teaching, and practice creates a brave space for folx to take risks that enrich and expand our understanding of social justice topics like interpersonal violence, anti-Black racism, and queer and trans phobias. Bringing an arts-infused lens to these issues shows why these problems exist and what we can do about them.”

Christensen holds a BA in theatre and literature from the University of Texas at Dallas, and an MSW and a PhD in Social Work from the University of Utah.

Professor Luke Shaefer’s latest book, “The Injustice of Place: Uncovering the Legacy of Poverty in America,” is now available. Together with his co-authors, Shaefer looked at poverty, combined with health outcomes and social mobility rates to examine America’s most disadvantaged communities — almost all of which are rural, and are concentrated in three regions: Appalachia, South Texas, and the southern Cotton Belt.

“Throughout these regions, we saw the same themes emerge again and again—unequal schooling, the collapse of social infrastructure, violence, entrenched public corruption, and structural racism embedded in government programs,” writes Shaefer.

ENGAGE Program Manager and Lecturer Fatima Salman has been named to the Higher Education workgroup of the Growing Michigan Together Council. “The diverse workgroup members of the Growing Michigan Together Council will be instrumental in our effort to grow our economy and population while protecting our natural resources,” said Governor Gretchen Whitmer. “These members represent a range of professions, communities, and perspectives—all of which are essential to developing a comprehensive strategy for growth. I look forward to hearing from the council and its workgroups later this year.”

Lecturer Susan Radzilowski, MSW ’82, spoke with Michigan Radio about the importance of psychological support for trangender kids, young adults and their families.

“Not only is cost a barrier to care, but it's sometimes just accessing therapists who understand the principles of gender-affirming care, which is to elevate the child's voice, to hear the child's voice, to offer exploration in a supportive environment, to listen and to understand what's helpful versus what's harmful,” she said.

Radzilowski is one of the mental health providers working with a new program by Stand with Trans that provides financial support for trans youth who would otherwise not be able to afford mental health counseling

Associate Professor Camille Quinn has been awarded a National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities R21 research grant. Her study will adapt mindfulness-based stress reduction interventions for justice-involved Black teenage girls.  

"This National Institute of Health (NIH) grant is a first step in my line of research on Black girls (and their parent/caregiver) who are an understudied and underserved population. I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to lead this project in partnership with the Franklin County Juvenile Court and my colleagues at Ohio State,” said Quinn. “What we learn from this study will help us develop culturally tailored interventions to promote Black girls' healing, mental health and crime desistance in a R01, the largest NIH grant in a randomized control trial here in Detroit, MI."

Professor Karla Goldman spoke with the Detroit Jewish News about the School’s Jewish Communal Leadership Program, which she directs. The five-semester program gives students an education in social work and Jewish history and culture, along with skills for working with organizations and communities, said Goldman.