Joint PhD Program News

Michelangelo Trujillo has successfully defended his dissertation entitled "Identity-Based Processes and Clinical Social Work Education." His committee included Joseph Himle (co-chair) and Richard Tolman.

Rita Hu has successfully defended her dissertation, “The Role of Social Relationships in the Development and Consequences of Self-Perceptions of Aging across the Lifespan.” Her committee included Lydia Li (co-chair) and Ruth Dunkle. 

Hu has accepted a Provost's Postdoctoral Fellowship and will transition to a tenure-track assistant professor position in 2026 at the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy and Practice, University of Chicago.

MSW Student Kevin Nguyen has been selected as the 2024 U-M National Association of Social Workers (NASW) Student of the Year. In bestowing this award, NASW looks at criteria including demonstrated leadership qualities, contribution to the positive image of a social work program, commitment to political and community activities, success in academic performance and representation of the NASW Code of Ethics. The award ceremony will be held Friday, April 12, 2024, 6-8:30 PM in Lansing, Michigan.

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.