Faculty and Researcher Profiles

FACULTY & RESEARCHER PROFILES Highly productive, nationally and internationally renowned faculty and researchers with expertise in aging and disability, child and family well-being, global social work, health, mental/behavioral health, poverty and social justice, and strengths.

socwel.ku.edu

DEBORAH ADAMS

JODY BROOK

Scholarship Focus Poverty and policy studies; asset building and asset effects; well-being of women and children; social and economic development; theory for research; mixed methods research.

Scholarship Focus Substance abuse across the lifespan; child welfare; family drug courts; substance abuse prevention; community substance abuse strategies; mixed research methods.

Grand Challenge Reduce extreme economic inequality. Stop family violence.

Build financial capability and assets for all.

Grand Challenges Close the health gap. Ensure healthy development for all youth.

Advance long and productive lives.

Associate Professor, MSW Program Director

Associate Professor

BECCI AKIN

EDWARD R. CANDA

Scholarship Focus Understanding the keys to successful implementation and effective and equitable interventions for families involved in child welfare.

Scholarship Focus Connections between cultural diversity, spirituality and resilience in relation to health, mental health and disabilities.

Associate Professor, PhD Program Director

Professor, Coordinator of Spiritual Diversity & Social Work Initiative

Grand Challenges Achieve equal opportunity and justice. Create social responses to a changing environment. Advance long and productive lives.

Grand Challenge Ensure healthy development for all youth. Stop family violence.

MEREDITH BAGWELL-GRAY

JULIANA CARLSON

Scholarship Focus Reduce health disparities for survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV); sexual safety planning intervention to address HIV/STI risk, substance use, and trauma.

Scholarship Focus International organizational practices to engage men in gender-based violence prevention; formal support of new and expectant fathers to reduce child exposure to domestic violence; economic and social justice for families.

Assistant Professor

Grand Challenge Stop family violence.

Assistant Professor

Grand Challenge Stop family violence.

MAHASWETA BANERJEE

CRYSTAL COLES

Scholarship Focus Theories and practices associated with enhancing social and economic justice; community development; micro-enterprise as an anti-poverty strategy; international social development; qualitative and quantitative research.

Scholarship Focus Child welfare and the intersection of the African-American/ Black diaspora through the lens of health disparities in rural and urban communities; focusing on the child and maternal well-being as a preventative method of children transitioning into the foster care system.

Grand Challenges Reduce extreme economic inequality. Build financial capability and assets for all.

Grand Challenge Ensure healthy development for all youth.

Professor, BSW Program Director

Assistant Professor

SHARAH DAVIS-GROVES

TERRY KOENIG

Scholarship Focus Promote evidenced based and community based practices to improve family well-being with at risk families. Utilize research findings to guide community based interventions for at risk families.

Scholarship Focus Ethical decision making in social work practice; social welfare philosophy; international social work development and crosscultural practices; Central Asian and post-Soviet issues; aging, elder abuse and self-neglect; qualitative research methods.

Project Manager

Grand Challenges Ensure healthy development for all youth. Stop family violence.

Professor

Grand Challenge Achieve equal opportunity and justice.

CHERYL HOLMES

MICHELLE LEVY

Scholarship Focus Frontier and rural; integrated care; behavioral health.

Scholarship Focus Recruitment, retention and workforce issues; health and behavioral health; interprofessional education, integrated care; prevention; rural perspectives; engagement; organizational intervention; cross-systems collaboration.

Associate Researcher

Grand Challenges Closing the health gap. Eradicating social isolation.

Research Associate

Grand Challenges Ensure healthy development for all youth. Close the health gap.

Achieve equal opportunity and justice.

SARAH JEN

MELINDA LEWIS

Scholarship Focus Intersections of social work, gerontology, and sexuality; support the sexual needs of aging populations and to improve the health and well-being of LGBTQ midlife and older adults.

Scholarship Focus Poverty and economic inequality; asset-based financial aid; social change; strategies for effective policy advocacy by nonprofit organizations; advocacy evaluation; advocacy capacity-building for individuals and social service organizations.

Assistant Professor

Associate Professor of Practice

Grand Challenge Achieve equal opportunity and justice. Close the health gap.

Advance long and productive lives.

Grand Challenges Achieve equal opportunity and justice. Reduce extreme economic inequality. Ensure healthy development for all youth.

Build financial capability and assets for all.

NANCY KEPPLE

ALICE LIEBERMAN

Scholarship Focus Social consequences of the availability, distribution and use of psychoactive substances; substance use behaviors among parenting populations; the role of parent substance use in child welfare decision-making; and racial/ethnic disparities within the child welfare system.

Scholarship Focus Social work education in child welfare; workforce issues in child welfare; generalist social work education pedagogy.

Assistant Professor

Grand Challenges Stop family violence. Ensure healthy development for all youth.

Eradicate social isolation.

Professor (Retirement 2019)

Grand Challenge Ensure health development for all youth.

JASON MATEJKOWSKI Associate Professor

Scholarship Focus Policies and services involving adults with mental illness who are involved with the criminal justice system or who are homeless.

Grand Challenges Promote smart decarceration. End homelessness.

ALLY MABRY

Strengths Based Case Management & Shared Decision-Making Consultant/ Trainer Scholarship Focus Evidence-based best practices implementation support for organizations providing services to adults and transition age youth who experience serious mental illness; Strengths Model of Case Management; development of fidelity scales; Client-centered social administrative practices for mental health organizations and state mental health authorities.

Grand Challenges Eradicate social isolation. End homelessness. Reduce extreme economic inequality. Achieve equal opportunity and justice.

BRIANA MCGEOUGH

Assistant Professor (starting fall 2019) Scholarship Focus Understanding and intervening on mental health disparities experienced by sexual minority individuals, particularly disparities in depression and alcohol use disorders Grand Challenges Close the health gap. Ensure healthy development for all youth.

Advance long and productive lives. Achieve equal opportunity and justice.

AMY MENDENHALL

CHRIS PETR

Scholarship Focus Children’s mental health including serious mental illness, service utilization, parent and child education and the impact of mental illness on children and their families.

Scholarship Focus Policy and practice issues in child mental health and child welfare; family-centered practice; professional-consumer relationship.

Grand Challenges Achieve equal opportunity and justice. Close the health gap.

Ensure health development for all youth.

Grand Challenge Ensure health development for all youth.

Associate Professor, Associate Dean for Research

Professor (Retirement 2019)

TERRY MOORE

MICHAEL RIQUINO

Scholarship Focus Child welfare management; management reporting; use of data in program improvement planning and management decision making; outcomes research; program evaluation; risk assessment; and abuse/neglect prevention with public assistance populations.

Scholarship Focus Understanding the processes underlying self-harm, evaluating the mechanisms informing treatment, and integrating the wisdom of youth voices by addressing self-harm across micro and macro levels - especially youth with marginalized identities

Project Director (Retirement 2019)

Grand Challenges Achieve equality opportunity and justice. Harness technology for social good.

Assistant Professor (starting fall 2019)

Grand Challenges Close the health gap. Ensure healthy development for all youth.

Advance long and productive lives. Achieve equal opportunity and justice.

MEGAN PACELEY

EDWARD SCANLON

Scholarship Focus Understanding the impact of non-urban communities on the health and well-being of gender and sexual minority (GSM) youth; development, sustainability, and evaluation of gender and sexual minority community organizations.

Scholarship Focus Anti-poverty programs and policies; social justice; policy and social change strategies.

Assistant Professor, DEI Coordinator

Grand Challenges Eradicate social isolation. Achieve equal opportunity and justice.

Close the health gap. Create social responses to a changing environment. Ensure healthy development for all youth. Stop family violence. Advance long and productive lives.

Associate Professor and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs

Grand Challenges Achieve equal opportunity and justice. Reduce extreme economic inequality. Create social responses to a changing environment. Build financial capability and assets for all. Build financial capability and assets for all.

visit socwel.ku.edu for publication and presentation information.

MARGARET SEVERSON

CARRIE WENDEL-HUMMELL

Scholarship Focus Research and practice in social justice venues, including mental health and suicide prevention programming in detention centers, divorce and child custody mediation, restorative justice and social work ethics.

Scholarship Focus Healthcare and long term services and supports policy, mental health over the life-course, aging with disabilities, mixed methods research, community based research.

Professor (Retirement 2019)

Grand Challenges Promote smart decarceration. Achieve equal opportunity and justice.

PAUL SMOKOWSKI Professor

Scholarship Focus Children and families, Latino immigrant families, rural youth, school, health, psychodrama techniques.

Grand Challenge Ensure healthy development for all youth.

Project Manager

Grand Challenges Eradicate social isolation. Close the health gap. Advance long and productive lives.

OUR VISION & MISSION All individuals, families, & communities utilize their power to achieve justice, equity, & well-being.

The University of Kansas School of Social Welfare, rooted in the Strengths Perspective, aims to transform lives and social contexts and promote social, economic, and environmental justice in Kansas, the nation and the world.

We do so by educating students to practice with integrity and competence; advancing the science and knowledge base of social work through scholarship and research; and participating in community-engaged service.

Guiding Principles & Values Relationship Building: We engage in relationship building that fosters creativity, collaboration, and mutual learning. Relationship building is essential across practice, scholarship, education and service. We take a strengths approach as we serve our local, state, national, and global communities.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: We embrace the inherent worth of all people. By taking the position of cultural humility and applying the lens of intersectionality, we seek to develop and promote modes of anti-oppressive social work and dismantle structures of exclusion.

Practice with Integrity: We demonstrate our integrity and trustworthiness as scholars, educators, practitioners, and community members by promoting social work values, ethical practice, and the process of critical reflection.

Multisystem Competency: We recognize that social, economic, and environmental injustices are the root causes of inequities and multiple strategies are necessary to address these. Our work integrates micro/macro social work and builds collaboration across systems and disciplines to create multi-level change.

Critical Perspective: We engage in deliberate and continuing examination of social conditions and solutions. We use critical inquiry to analyze and challenge existing structures and systems in order to advance the field and promote social, economic, and environmental justice.

Empirically Informed Social Work: We rigorously advance empirical research that impacts the social work knowledge base.

By translating and applying evidence, we continually transform practice and policy across multiple systems.