Joint PhD Program News

Elizabeth Rhodes (PhD student), along with mentor Associate Professor Trina Shanks, received an award from the U-M Rackham Graduate School to conduct fieldwork for her PhD dissertation.

The dissertation aims to determine what factors (e.g. income, ethnicity, political affiliation, community involvement, etc.) affect access to health and education services and satisfaction with the quantity and quality of services utilized.

PhD student Amanda Tillotson and Professor John Tropman published "Early Responders, Late Responders, and Non-responders: The Principal-Agent Problem in Board Oversight of Nonprofit CEOs" in the current issue of Human Service Organizations Management Leadership and Governance Journal. 

Claudette Grinnell-Davis successfully defended her dissertation, entitled "Toward an Etiology of Child Maltreatment: An Ecological Study of Primary Caregivers At Risk of Child Welfare System Involvement" and thus obtained her PhD in Social Work and Psychology.

Dr. Grinnell-Davis has accepted an Assistant Professor of Child Welfare and Social Work position at the University of Nebraska, Omaha.

Her committee included Berit Ingersoll-Dayton, Robert Ortega, Lorraine Gutierrez and Andrew Grogan-Kaylor.

David Pollio, PhD '94, has been named chair of the University of Alabama at Birmingham Department of Social Work.

Amanda Tillotson, PhD was selected as a Ford Fellowship Scholar for the 2014-2015 academic year. 

Barbara Ngwenya (PhD 2000) of Okavango Research Institute became the first Motswana woman to become professor in the field of Applied Anthropology at the University of Botswana.

This award was established by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation along with matching funds provided by the Ann and Robert Lurie Family Foundation. It is awarded to students in the Joint Doctoral Program in Social Work and Social Science with a research interest in advancing the understanding of issues relevant to improving the well-being of children, youth and their families.

Abigail Williams, PhD student, was awarded the Vivian A. and James L. Curtis Endowed Scholarship.  The scholarship supports doctoral students whose research focuses on minority populations with low income and education, with a preference for research on issues faced by African American males.