Joint PhD Program News

Matthew Bakko, Joint PhD student in Social Work and Sociology has been selected for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Health Policy Research Scholars program.

The program supports and connects emerging scholars who are committed to bringing about meaningful change and building a national Culture of Health. Participants build the interdisciplinary skills and relationships necessary to extend their influence and impact, break down silos, address health disparities, and make our communities healthier.

His research will explore how new philanthropic and service delivery models and tools reconfigure organizations, engage with diverse communities, alter power dynamics and blur sector boundaries to affect the capacity building and social change process.

The Robert Woods Johnson Health Policy Research Scholars program supports underrepresented scholars, including first-generation, low-income background and students of color.

Assistant Professor Shanna Kattari is Bakko's Institutional Mentor for the Healthy Policy Research Scholars Program.

Jessica Wiederspan, PhD '17 dissertation research, "How the Ideology of the American Dream Persists in an Era of Economic Insecurity" is cited in The Washington Post, "Donald Trump's grotesque fraud". Wiederspan is a researcher studying basic income with the Y Combinator.

Rick Rodems successfully defended his dissertation entitled "Hidden Hardship: Three Essays on Poverty and Material Welfare in the United States."  His committee consisted of Luke Shaefer, Fabian Pfeffer (co-chairs), Sandra Danziger and Greta Krippner. Rodems has accepted a postdoctoral fellowship at U-M Poverty Solutions.

Rick Rodems successfully defended his dissertation entitled "Hidden Hardship: Three Essays on Poverty and Material Welfare in the United States."  His committee consisted of Luke Shaefer, Fabian Pfeffer (co-chairs), Sandra Danziger and Greta Krippner. Rodems has accepted a postdoctoral fellowship at U-M Poverty Solutions.

Charity Hoffman successfully defended her dissertation "The 21st Century Mother: How New Moms Navigate Work, Family and the Struggle to Have it All” and obtained her PhD in Social Work and Sociology. Her committee consisted of Karin Martin, Katie Richards-Schuster (co-chairs), Fatma Muge Gocek and Mary Ruffolo. Hoffman has accepted a Research Project Coordinator position at UM's Women & Infants Mental Health Program in the Department of Psychiatry.

Rachel Burrage successfully defended her dissertation "Trauma, Loss, Resilience, and Resistance in the Beauval Indian Residential School” and obtained her PhD in Social Work and Psychology.  Her committee consisted of Joseph Gone, Sandra Momper (co-chairs), Donna Nagata and Karen Staller. She has accepted a tenure track faculty position with University of Hawaii at the Manoa's Myron B. Thompson School of Social Work.

Laura Yakas successfully defended her dissertation "Love in a Time of Madness: The Importance of Purpose and Belonging in Healing and Harnessing Madness". Her committee consisted of Karen Staller, Damani Partridge (co-chairs), Richard Tolman and Holly Peters-Golden. Yakas has accepted a summer position at a Global Leadership Forum for high school students.

Kathryn Berringer, Alex Lu (MSW student) and Joyce Y. Lee received the Doctoral Poster Awards at the School of Social Work's Social Justice in Social Work Research Symposium. Berringer was awarded for her poster, "Examining Drivers of Health Inequities in HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) Implementation in the US". Lu and Lee for their poster "Spank, Smack, & Whoop”: Stay-At-Home Parents’ Spanking Tweets".