Faculty Achievements

Faculty Take on Grand Challenges

STRENGTHENING DISASTER PROTECTIONS

Assistant Professor Jennifer First is studying human risk, vulnerability, and adaptive capacity to disaster events and climate change. Her work focuses on the psychological impacts of disaster events and measuring capacities found to support adaptation and resilience. Her research has received support from the Natural Hazards Center.

Severe weather often includes overlapping tornado and flash flood warnings, but the recommended protective actions for the two events are contradictory—sheltering below ground for tornadoes and moving to high ground for flash floods. Using a convergent framework, First’s interdisciplinary study combines atmospheric, geospatial, and social science methodologies to examine a location’s climatological risk and societal exposure to tornado and flash flood events and the relation of those factors to how residents perceive, respond to, and prioritize protective actions when dual warnings occur.

When extreme events such as these threaten communities, it is paramount that researchers collect perishable data before, during, and immediately following the disaster to ensure that vital information is not lost. This type of research is fundamental to the advancement of the field, and it can provide life-saving information to decision makers and ultimately promote the collective good.

DEVELOPING PLATFORMS FOR LATINX VOICES

Associate Professor and Nashville campus MSSW Program Director Mary Held focuses her scholarship on strengthening knowledge related to trauma and resilience among immigrant communities to inform services provided in new destination states. Her work is situated in the current sociopolitical climate of both immigrantsending nations and the United States.

Held recently received funding from UT’s Office of Research and Development for a study of stress, resilience, and mental health in Latinx adults. Held will study how stress due to discrimination, enforcement of new immigration policies, and COVID-19 may influence mental wellness and whether resilience factors buffer those influences. The project includes both immigrants and people born in the US.

Data from Latinx adults is needed to better understand their perceptions and experiences of resilience, key stressors, and mental health and to improve services provided to those in need. Held’s project employs a cross-sectional survey design to assess the correlation of these stressors as well as the mitigating role of resilience on depression and anxiety for Latinx adults.

NEW FACULTY & STAFF IN 2020 New Faculty

Jennifer First, Assistant Professor Kristen Ravi, Assistant Professor Lisa Zottarelli, Clinical Associate Professor

New Leadership Faculty

Douglas Coatsworth, Betsey Bush Endowed Professor in Behavioral Health and Associate Dean for Research Lizzie Bowland, DSW Program Director and Professor Gretchen Ely, PhD Program Director and Professor

BLACKWELL HONORED WITH NATIONAL LEADERSHIP AWARD

Michael Blackwell, director of the Program for Pet Health Equity and chair of the Access to Veterinary Care Coalition, works to improve access to veterinary care, especially for families with limited means. He was honored with the 2020 Avanzino Leadership Award presented by Maddie’s Fund—a national family foundation established by Dave and Cheryl Duffield to revolutionize the status and well-being of companion animals—in recognition of his leadership and dedication to the human-animal bond. The award includes a $25,000 grant.

Like his father, Blackwell has a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree from Tuskegee University. He also has a Master of Public Health degree from Loma Linda University. He has served as dean of UT’s College of Veterinary Medicine, chief of staff in the Office of the Surgeon General of the US, deputy director of the US Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Veterinary Medicine, and chief veterinary officer of both the US Public Health Service and the Humane Society of the United States.

FOSTERING A GREATER UNDERSTANDING OF HOMELESSNESS

David Patterson, Endowed Professor of Mental Health Research and Practice, focuses much of his research on homelessness.

Patterson launched the Knoxville Homeless Management Information System, known as KnoxHMIS, in 2004 to provide a secure webbased database of demographic and service delivery information for individuals experiencing homelessness. The project operates as a community outreach collaboration between the College of Social Work and the Social Work Office of Research and Public Service (SWORPS).

As part of the university’s land-grant mission, KnoxHMIS works closely with community partners and operates the community’s collaborative database on homeless services, needs, and outcomes; facilitates CHAMP, a coordinated entry program matching homeless individuals with services and housing; hosts and maintains Knox Housing Help, an online social service resource guide; disseminates timely information through the Community Dashboard on Homelessness and community-focused reports; and partners with the homeless service community in strategic planning and policy development.

Knoxville City Council has approved funding for the KnoxHMIS CARES project that Patterson is leading. Patterson, Program Manager Nate First, and the team will continue their community outreach through SWORPS and UTCSW to foster greater understanding of the social consequences, human impact, and other deleterious effects of homelessness.

New Field Faculty & Staff

Brittany Adams, Coordinator of Field Education, Online BSSW Program, and Associate Professor of Practice Hannah Brown, Administrative Specialist for Field Education

New Recruitment & Communications Staff

Becca Huppi, Recruiter—Nashville Caitlin Moore, Recruiter—Knoxville Angela Thomas, Marketing & Communications Manager

RETIRED FACULTY IN 2020

Mary Ann Cunningham Freida Herron Marlys Staudt

1. UT students distribute meals at Grandfamilies Meal

Connect, sponsored by College of Social Work partner

Knoxville–Knox County Community Action Committee, at Beardsley Farm in Knoxville.

2. Faculty, staff, and students visit the Civil Rights

Museum in Birmingham, Alabama.

3 & 4. Members of the Coalition of Black Social Workers serve at the West Nashville Dream Center following the tornadoes that struck the Nashville area in March.

The group partnered with Trader Joe’s and Whole

Foods to provide fresh produce to neighbors who live in a food desert.

5. Candice Hinkle, assistant director of the Program for Pet Health Equity, consults with a client.

6. Students gather with community partners at the

Highlander Center as part of a collaboration funded through a Social Justice Innovation Initiative grant.