Joint PhD Program News

Kaitlin Ward, Joint Doctoral Program in Social Work and Psychology, has successfully defended her dissertation entitled “Ecological Influences of Parental Discipline Behaviors and Child Outcomes among Families in Low-and Middle-Income Countries.” Her committee consisted of Shawna Lee and Andy Grogan-Kaylor.

Ward has accepted a position at Google.

Two Michigan Social Work PhD students have received 2022 Next Generation Initiative Awards from the Institute of Social Research. Analidis Ochoa was awarded a Marshall Weinberg Endowment for her project “Blood Veins for Hire: Plasma Donation in an age of Inequality, Instability, and Precarious Work.” Briana Starks received a Sarri Family Fellowship for Research on Educational Attainment of Children in Low Income Families for her project “Diapers, Debt, & Degrees: The Practical and Theoretical Implications of Maternal Postnatal Educational Attainment.”

PhD student Matthew Bakko explains in The Conversation the history of bail funds and why they matter. “More than 80% of the over 650,000 people in jail in the U.S. have not been convicted and are presumed innocent but can’t afford bail,” he writes. “Helping people pay bail is important because it means that they can return home and remain employed or in school. They are also less likely to be pressured to accept a plea deal, in which they plead guilty to a lesser charge to serve less time, whether they committed the alleged offense or not.”

PhD student Valerie Taing has been awarded a 2022-2023 Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship. The Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship is one of the most prestigious awards granted by the Rackham Graduate School. Doctoral candidates who expect to graduate within six years after beginning their degrees are eligible to apply, and the strength and quality of their dissertation abstract, publications and presentations, and recommendations are all taken into consideration when granting this award.

Finn McLafferty Bell, Joint Doctoral Program in Social Work and Sociology, has successfully defended his dissertation entitled “Marginalized Food Growers in a Changing Environment: Tracing Collective Survival Strategies.” His committee consisted of Sandra Danziger and Katie Richards-Schuster. Bell has accepted a tenure-track assistant professor of Human Services at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.

Garrett Pace, Joint Doctoral Program in Social Work and Sociology, has successfully defended his dissertation entitled "Corporal Punishment Bans in Global Perspective: Conceptualization and Child- and Caregiver-Reported Outcomes.” His committee consisted of Shawna Lee and Andrew Grogan-Kaylor. Pace has accepted a tenure-track assistant professor position at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

PhD student (Social Work & Psychology) Andrea Mora was awarded a scholarship from the Association of Latina/o Social Work Educators. The scholarship supports the advancement of social work education especially among the Latino population.

PhD student (Social Work & Anthropology) Yun Chen was awarded a Barbour Scholarship from Rackham Graduate School for the 2022-23 academic year. Barbour established a U-M scholarship for women of the highest academic and professional caliber from the area extending from Turkey in the west to Japan and the Philippines in the east. Barbour scholars study science, medicine, mathematics and other academic disciplines.