PhD Faculty Members

Aging  |  Child Welfare  |  Health

Management and Community Development  |  Mental Health/Substance Abuse

Poverty  |  Social Work Practice/Education

Aging

Banghwa Lee Casado, Assistant Professor; MSW, PhD, University of Houston. Research/professional interests:community-based long-term care, family caregiving, minority aging, immigration and cultural adjustment, and program evaluation and community-based research methods.

Kelley R. Macmillan, Assistant Professor; MSW, University of Indiana; PhD, University of Kansas. Research/professional interests: health, aging, evaluation of state community-based services for older adults and direct social work practice with individuals, families, and groups.

Mitsuko Nakashima, Assistant Professor, MSW, PhD, University of Kansas. Current research/ professional interests: Aging; Cultural Diversity; Complementary and Alternative Medicine; Spirituality; End-of-life; Immigration.

Child Welfare

Howard Altstein, Professor, MSW, New York University; PhD, University of Illinois. Current research/professional interests: transracial and intercountry adoptions, and gay and lesbian adoptions.

Richard P.Barth, Dean and Professor; AB, Brown University; MSW, PhD, University of California-Berkeley. Research/professional interests: child welfare issues, families and children, adoption, and evidence-based research and practice.

James X. Bembry, Associate Professor, MSW, Temple University; PhD, University of Maryland Baltimore. Current research/professional interests: community service, child welfare, child advocacy, social work education, teen parents, mental health, group work, family counseling, social work and the law.

Caroline Long Burry, Associate Professor, MSW, University of Georgia; PhD, University of South Carolina. Current research/professional interests: adoption foster care, child protective services, death penalty exposure, and prenatal substance abuse

Toni Chance, Assistant Professor; MSW, University of Texas at Arlington; PhD, Washington University. Research/professional interests: child welfare, policy, and practice.

Diane DePanfilis, Associate Professor and Assistant Dean for Research, MSW, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee; PhD, University of Maryland Baltimore. Current research/professional interests: child  maltreatment, child welfare, child protective services, and measuring outcomes of early intervention with families.

Geoffrey L. Greif, Professor; MSW, University of Pennsylvania; DSW, Columbia University. Research/professional interests: AIDS and the family, parental abduction, single parents, practice in the Baltimore City schools, groupwork, academically successful African-Americans.

Donna Harrington, Professor and Director, Ruth H. Young Child Welfare Center, BA, University of Maine at Orono; PhD, University of Maryland Baltimore County. Current research/professional interests: child maltreatment and development, relationship between maternal substance use, parenting and child development and how maternal illness (HIV infection) influences parenting and child development.

Carlton E. Munson, Professor, MSW, PhD, University of Maryland Baltimore. Current research/professional interests: trauma and loss in children, student and practitioner stress reactions, trends in social work education curriculum and enrollment patterns.

Susan Zuravin, Professor, MSW, University of Maryland Baltimore; PhD,  University of Maryland College Park. Current research/professional interests: child maltreatment, foster care, child development and mental health, poverty.

Melissa H. Bellin, Assistant Professor; MSW, PhD, Virginia Commonwealth University. Research/professional interests: child and family adaptation to chronic illness and disability, social justice, social work practice in health care, and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Llewellyn Cornelius, Professor and Associate Director, Institute for Human Services Policy, MA, University of Chicago; PhD, University of Chicago. Current research/professional interests: poverty, health policy, institutional racism, ethnicity, and access to medical care for the disadvantaged.

Bruce DeForge, Associate Professor, MS, Towson State University; PhD, University of Maryland, College Park. Current research/professional interests: psychosocial aspects of health, hypertension and cardiovascular disease, sociology of mental health, social psychology, homelessness, mental health policy.

Julianne S. Oktay, Professor and Director, Doctoral Program, MSW, PhD, University of Michigan. Current research/professional interests: social work in health care, breast cancer, personal care services for the elderly and disabled.

Howard A. Palley, Professor, MS, Yeshiva University; PhD, Syracuse University. Current research/professional interests: health care policy, social policies and the elderly, comparative social and health policy, social policy analysis, long-term care policy, and social development. 

Management and Community Development

Karen M. Hopkins, Associate Professor, MSW, University of Pittsburgh; PhD, University of Chicago. Current research/professional interests: Organizational Citizenship, Organizational learning, Supervisory and management practices that Enhance Worker Well– Being.

Megan Meyer, AssociateProfessor, MSW, PhD, University of California at Los Angeles.  Current research/professional interest: Community organizing and advocacy, social movements and social action, and social capital development.

Elizabeth Mulroy, Professor, MSW, PhD, University of Southern California.  Current research/professional interests: Affordable Housing; Community Development; Single Parent Families; Organizations and Environments; Theories of the Social Environment; Inter-organizational Collaborations, Partnerships, and Complex Networks.

Steven Daniel Soifer, Associate Professor, MSW, Washington University; PhD, Brandeis University. Current research/professional interests: community organizing theory and practice, social movements, Jewish issues in social work, and paruresis (shy bladder syndrome).

Mental Health/Substance Abuse

John R. Belcher, Professor, MSW, University of Kentucky; PhD, Ohio State University. Current research/professional interests: understanding the process of homelessness, particularly as the result of economic dislocation; research with the severely mentally disabled, the development of models of treatment, spirituality, and development of social capital.

Kathryn S. Collins, Associate Professor; BSW, Mars Hill College; MSW, Tulane University; PhD University ofSouth Carolina. Research/professional interests: violence exposure and trauma symptomatology, mental health and disability policies, and cognitive/narrative interventions in social work education and practice.

Deborah Gioia, Assistant Professor; MSW, Columbia University; PhD, University of Southern California. Research/professional interests: schizophrenia and vocational identity, evidence-based practice adoption by mental health practitioners, and adolescence and emerging adulthood.

Jodi M. Jacobson, Assistant Professor; MSW, PhD, University of Maryland, Baltimore. Research/professional interests: employee assistance programs, work/life, workplace crisis intervention, traumatic stress, and suicide.

Michael Lindsey, Assistant Professor, MSW, Howard University; MPH, University of Pittsburgh; PhD, University of Pittsburgh. Research/Professional interests: mental health service delivery to minority adolescents, development of male children in single-mother homes, violence prevention among urban youth, community health assessment, academic and community collaborations and partnerships.

Joshua N. Okundaye, Assistant Professor, MSW, University of Maryland Baltimore; MA, University of Oklahoma; PhD, University of Maryland Baltimore. Current research/professional interests: substance abuse treatment, addictions, and youth.

Laura Ting, Assistant Professor, MSW, Columbia University School of Social Work; PhD, University of Maryland, Baltimore. Current research/professional interests: domestic violence, violence across the lifespan, domestic violence batterers and alcoholism.

Poverty

Catherine Born, Research Associate Professor, MSW/PhD, University of Maryland Baltimore. Current research/professional interests: welfare and child support reform, especially effects on children and families, use of administrative data for research purposes, use of research data in policy-making, program design and program monitoring, skill development for front-line public agency personnel, developing and sustaining agency-university research partnerships.

Ralph L. Dolgoff, Professor, MA, Columbia University; MSW, Adelphi University; DSW, Columbia University. Current research/professional interests: poverty, social policy, social work profession, supervision, delivery of social services, history of social welfare, social work education, ethical decision making , and ethics. 

Social Work Practice/Education

Toni Cascio, Associate Professor, MSW, University of Maryland Baltimore; PhD, University of Pennsylvania. Current research/professional interests: spirituality and social work practice, teaching methods in social work, and capital litigation.

Kathleen Deal, Associate Professor, MSW, PhD, The Catholic University of America. Current research/professional interests: social work student development, research on social work field education, mental health, and field instructor training.

Frederick A. DiBlasio, Professor, MSW, University of Maryland Baltimore; PhD, Virginia Commonwealth University. Current research/professional interests: clinical use of forgiveness and other clinical practice issues.

Paul H. Ephross, Professor, MSW, Boston University; PhD, University of Chicago. Current research/professional interests: social work with groups, human sexual behavior, program evaluation, life-cycle issues, ethnicity and intergroup relations.

Jesse J. Harris, Professor, MS, Howard University; MSW, PhD, University of Maryland Baltimore. Current research/professional interests: history of social work within the Armed Services, psychosocial stress of soldiers and military families.

Carolyn Knight, Associate Professor, MSW, PhD, University of Maryland Baltimore.  Current research/professional interests: field education in social work, group work in social work practice, group and individual treatment of adult survivors of child sexual abuse, and vicarious traumatization.

Alfred Lucco, Associate Professor, MA, PhD, University of Chicago. Current research/professional interests: children of separation and divorce, effectiveness of psychotherapy, techniques of psychotherapy, and managed mental health care delivery systems.

Edward V. Pecukonis, Associate Professor and Director, Maternal and Child Health Training, MSW, Smith College School of Social Work; PhD, University of Maryland Baltimore. Current research/professional interests: psychoanalytically oriented individual psychotherapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, strategic family therapy, identifying the long-term sequela of child abuse and family violence on adult health status and psychological well-being.

Shoshana Ringel, Assistant Professor, MSW, Hunter College; PhD, Smith College. Current research/ professional interests: death and dying, psychodynamic theory and treatment, trauma, women’s issues, and working with immigrants and refugees.

Carolyn Tice, Associate Dean and Chair, Undergraduate Program and Associate Professor, MSW, Temple University; DSW, University of Pennsylvania. Current research/ professional interests: social welfare policy, policy & practice from a strengths perspective.

Raju Varghese, Associate Professor, MSW, University of Pennsylvania; EdD, Temple University; MPH, Johns Hopkins University. Current research/professional interests: group dynamics and organizational theory, social work consultation, intercultural relations, and family and individual development.

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