School of Social Work News

Associate Dean for Educational Programs and Professor Mary Ruffolo and Assistant Director Office of Global Activities and LEO Adjunct Lecturer Katie Lopez received a grant from the U-M Health Sciences Council to create a sustainable global health platform involving three professional schools. They will pilot a comprehensive community needs assessment for the Ugandan Context to develop intervention and research projects to be carried out next year.

Valerie Taing (PhD student) was selected as a Health Policy Research Scholar by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for the fall and winter semesters.

Professor William Elliott III was cited in the Inside Higher Ed article, “How to Pay for Free Community College.”

He was also featured in the Diverse: Issues In Higher Education article, “Merging of Savings Accounts Proposed for College Funding.”

Lauren Whitmer (PhD student, Social Work and Anthropology) was selected as a fellow of the U.S. Department of Education’s Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad program to conduct 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Lambayeque, Peru. She will examine how women in violent relationships make decisions about help-seeking and how potential helpers (friends, family, social service providers) make decisions about what kinds of help to offer/withhold.

LEO Adjunct Lecturer Adrienne Lapidos received a grant from the Peace Research Institute Oslo to conduct a review of the literature on the mental health after-effects of conflict; to prepare a written report and bibliography on this literature; and to help develop proposals aimed at appropriate funders such as the National Institutes of Health.

Associate Professor Matthew Smith received a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to develop and test the efficacy of a virtual reality job interview training program (VR) to help train adults with severe mental illness prepare for job interviews, as part of the supported employment method.

Sara Stein (PhD student) and Associate Professor Andy Grogan-Kaylor’s article, “23 Contributions to depressed affect in latina women: examining the effectiveness of the moms’ empowerment program” was published in Injury Prevention.

Tina Jiwatram-Negron (Curtis Center postdoctoral fellow) and Associate Dean for Research and Professor Joe Himle received a grant from the U-M SSW via the Curtis Research and Training Center for their New York City-based study which will develop and test an integrated, brief screening for a previously identified syndemic of intimate partner violence, HIV/STIs, substance use, and depression/self-harm among Hispanic/Latino women in the U.S.