Joint PhD Program

Peter Felsman (PhD student) and Associate Dean for Research and Professor Joe Himle received a grant from The Detroit Creativity Project for "The Improv Project" which is a Detroit school-based program that teaches life skills to adolescents through improvisational theater. The program has been found to predict increases in social skills and reductions in social phobia, through survey outcome data.

Joyce Lee (PhD student) and Associate Professor Andy Grogan-Kaylor received a grant from Rackham Graduate School for #Parenting, which is an interdisciplinary workshop that provides a forum for faculty and graduate students to address issues related to parenting research.

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

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.

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.

Janelle Goodwill (PhD student) interviewed with the University at Buffalo School of Social Work’s inSocialWork Podcast Series on her work with black men, media, and masculinity.

Sara Stein (PhD student) and Associate Professor Andy Grogan-Kaylor’s article, “Profiles of Children's Thinking About Violence in Families Exposed to Intimate Partner Violence” was published in the Journal of Child and Family Studies.

Joyce Lee (PhD student) and Associate Professor Shawna Lee presented, "Child emotional insecurity mediates the longitudinal relations between intimate partner violence, destructive parental conflict, and children's behavior problems." at the Advancement of Violence and Injury Research National Conference.

Jessica Wiederspan successfully defended her dissertation, "How Bad Does It Have to Get? How the Ideology of the American Dream Persists in an Era of Economic Insecurity” and obtained her PhD in Social Work and Sociology. Her committee consisted of Professor Emerita Sandra Danziger and Associate Professor Karen Staller.

Elise Hernandez successfully defended her dissertation, "Familia Matters? Social Support among Older Latina/os in the United States" and obtained her PhD in Social Work and Psychology. Dr. Hernandez has accepted a position as a Research and Analytics Manager with Meals on Wheels America. Her committee consisted of Berit Ingersoll-Dayton and David Cordova.