Joint PhD Program

Nick Espitia, Joint Doctoral Program in Social Work and Sociology, has successfully defended his dissertation entitled “Our Existence is a Political Issue: Examining the Political Participation of Undocumented Latinx Immigrants in the Midwest.” Katie Richards-Schuster served on his committee.

Espitia has accepted a tenure-track faculty position in the department of social work at Oakland University.

Associate Professor Terri Friedline received the 2022 Doctoral Student Organization Faculty Award. “I'm humbled to receive this award from doctoral students —an acknowledgement of my contributions,” said Friedline. “It is a tremendous honor to play a small role in supporting the next generations of social work and social sciences scholars.”

Lolita Moss, Joint Doctoral Program in Social Work and Psychology, has successfully defended her dissertation entitled “The Medium and the Message: An Investigation of Mainstream Media Use, Relationship Scripts, and Intimate Partner Violence among Black Adolescents.” Her committee consisted of Lorraine Gutiérrez and Richard Tolman.

Moss has accepted a position as a research faculty professor at Tulane University's Violence Prevention Institute in the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.

Analidis Ochoa, Luke Shaefer and Andrew Grogan-Kaylor’s 2021 study on blood plasma donations and poverty was cited in the recent Washington Post article "Surviving Inflation One Plasma Donation at a Time."

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.

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.

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.