Joint PhD Program

Director of Joint PhD Program and Associate Professor Daphne Watkins is one of five social work scholars selected to be featured at the Society for Social Work and Research's (SSWR) Brief and Brilliant TEDx-style session in January. This year’s conference theme is "Achieving Equal Opportunity, Equity and Justice". Related to this theme, each speaker will be asked to complete the statement “I dream a world….”. The Brief and Brilliant session was developed last year with the goal of translating social work research to engage a broad audience and emphasize the public relevance of this work.

Director of Joint PhD Program and Associate Professor Daphne Watkins was cited in the NBC News article, “Hip-hop works to break down mental health stigma for black men.”

Lisa Larance’s (PhD student) article, “Strategically Stealthy: Women’s Agency in Navigating Spousal Violence” was published in the Journal of Women and Social Work.

Angie Perone’s (PhD student) op-ed, “Navigating Nursing Home Violations, Dwindling Protections, and Potential Solutions for LGBT Older Adults” was published in PrideSource.

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.