Joint PhD Program News

PhD student So’Phelia Morrow describes in a New York Amsterdam News editorial how seeing a squirrel chasing a butterfly sparked hope and inspired her to leave an abusive partner.

“The moment lasted only a second, but it was long enough for me to receive the message,” she wrote. “Although I never thought much about butterflies before, at that moment, I saw it as hope. I laughed to myself. Hope was flying in front of me. Change was going to come.”

PhD student Joonyoung Cho has been named a 2024 Grand Challenges Doctoral Fellow. His project “Contact Frequency with Children Following Relocation Later in Life: Do Contact Modes and Proximity to a Child Matter?” addresses the Grand Challenge to Eradicate Social Isolation. These fellowships work to broaden the pipeline of social workers equipped for and committed to tackling and surmounting the Grand Challenges. PhD student Rita Hu received an honorable mention for her project “The Role of Social Relationships in The Internalization and Consequence of Self-Perceptions of Aging Across the Life Span.”

PhD student Nicolás Juárez was named to the 2023 cohort of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Health Policy Research Scholars. The national leadership program is for full-time doctoral students who are entering their second year of study and are from populations underrepresented in specific doctoral disciplines and/or historically marginalized backgrounds.

“I am so excited to be part of the 2023 Health Policy Research Scholars cohort,” said Juarez. “I know another world is possible, and I am incredibly grateful to be given the time and resources to craft socially just and participatory approaches to environmental degradation and injustice.”

Matthew Bakko, Joint PhD in Social Work and Sociology, has successfully defended his dissertation, “Institutional Change in Municipal Public Safety and the Logics of Punishment and Care.” Sunggeun Park served on his committee and Katie Richards-Schuster co-chaired his committee.

Bakko has accepted a position as an Assistant Professor at Wayne State University.

PhD student So’Phelia Morrow recently published an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune on the underrecognized dangers of emotional abuse. “I can’t say that I was ever hit, slapped or punched, but I know that a prison of abuse can be built without the abuser ever laying a hand on the victim.” 

Morrow is a Public Voices Fellow on Advancing the Rights of Women and Girls. Her fellowship is part of The OpEd Project and Equality Now.

Taha Rauf, Joint PhD in Social Work and Political Science, has successfully defended his dissertation, “Political Economy Impacts of Muslim Religious Institutions: The Case of Sufi Khanagah in India.” Lawrence Root (co-chair) and Karen Staller served on his committee. 

Rauf has accepted a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Louisville’s Center for Asian Democracy.

Andrea Mora, Joint PhD in Social Work and Psychology, has successfully defended her dissertation, “An Examination of Community Violence Exposure and Sexual Harassment Among Latino/a Adolescents.”

Todd Herrenkohl and Lorraine Gutiérrez (co-chair) served on her committee. Mora has accepted a position as an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh for fall 2023.

Anne Blumenthal, Joint PhD in Social Work and Sociology, has successfully defended her dissertation, "Essays on Child Well-Being and Parenting During the Covid-19 Pandemic."

Todd Herrenkohl, Katie Maguire-Jack and Sandra Danziger (co-chair) served as on her committee. Blumenthal has accepted a position as the Harold A. Richman Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice and Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago.