Skip to Content
Skip to Navigation
University of Washington
UW School of Social Work

Current Doctoral Students

Karen Bancroft
obtained an MSW from Walla Walla College in 2003. Karen worked for the Walla Walla Veterans Administration as a case manager for homeless veterans with substance abuse and mental health issues. Her dissertation uses a spatial and temporal analysis to examine how marginalized people were and continue to be "fixed" in certain spaces. She believes that space and place are intrinsic to social work and its ecological perspective and by placing social work processes into their appropriate spatial and temporal contexts we open up new ways in which to think about practice and research. Having personally experienced homelessness, she is concerned with the ways spatial policies continue to be regenerated and reconstructed with the outcomes of proliferating homelessness.
email: bancrk@uw.edu

Lisa Bancroft
earned her MSW from the University of Washington Tacoma in 2006, and currently holds her certificate of doctoral candidacy (PhC). Starting in 1999, Lisa spent eight years working in gerontological research at the UW Department of Medicine's Adult Changes in Thought (ACT) Study with a focus on dementia. Additional research experience includes her work for the National CSWE Gero-Ed Center at the UW; the Northwest Institute for Children and Families; and the Washington State Department of Health. Lisa’s practice experience includes her work as a psychometrist, a mental health counselor, a chemical dependency counselor, and group facilitator. Lisa’s research interests include the effects of ageism and how it contributes to isolation and segregation of older adults; the need for appropriate elder housing for greater independence; intergenerational housing models; and caregiver training that contributes to the quality of life for older adults. Lisa has served on the board of directors for the Many Lights Foundation, where she shares a vision to help unite foster children with adoptive parents in an intergenerational community that will provide a mutually supportive environment for families and older adults. Lisa currently teaches at the UW Tacoma. She was the recipient of a Hartford Pre-dissertation Award, is a UW Retirement Association Fellow, and is a founding member of the Gerontology Social Work Group at the University of Washington.
email: lmills@uw.edu

G. Odessa Benson
Odessa received her BA from the University of the Philippines and her MSW from Arizona State University in 2010. Odessa was a journalist in San Diego, California and Guam, and military member in the U.S. Air Force family advocacy unit in Arizona. Her master’s thesis explored how Bhutanese refugees used Hindu religious coping and social support in resettling in the U.S., and was last year presented in the Arizona Annual Refugee Resettlement Conference. Her work included spearheading a refugee leaders training workshop and job readiness program, and capacity-building with refugee groups. In research, Odessa is interested in supporting refugees and immigrants, focusing on religion/spirituality, identity (re)formation and organizational development. Odessa currently works with at-risk youth and families in North Carolina, and consults with refugee organizations.
email: obenson@uw.edu

Shannon Blajeski
received her MSW from the University of Washington in 2005. For 5 years prior to entering UW she worked for The Washington Institute for Mental Health Research & Training within the University of Washington Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences where in 2007 she assisted with the implementation of 10 evidence-based Assertive Community Treatment (PACT) teams for the treatment of adults with severe mental illness across WA State acting as both trainer/consultant and program fidelity reviewer for this project. In 2011 and 2012, she has been the lead on smaller pilots of evidence-based Integrated Dual Disorder Treatment (IDDT) and Illness Management & Recovery (IMR) treatment programs for the same adult population. Shannon had worked with clients with Schizophrenia and other major mental illnesses in the community since 1999 before transitioning into implementing evidence-based mental health practices in WA State. Her research interests include early intervention for psychosis programs and exploring the preventive angles of early intervention and wellness programming on long-term disability for adults with Schizophrenia.
email: blajes@uw.edu

Sharon Borja
received her BS in Social Work from the University of the Philippines in 1996, after which she worked as a community organizer in rural farming communities and as a social worker at a children's shelter in Manila. Sharon graduated from San Francisco State University (SFSU) in 2008 with her MSW. While at SFSU, she worked at the City of San Francisco’s South of Market Mental Health Clinic and at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Trauma Recovery Center as an MSW intern. Her Master’s Thesis — “Help-Seeking Patterns of Immigrant Filipino Women Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence” — an exploratory, qualitative study, focusing on immigrant Filipino women’s help-seeking patterns, and barriers to seeking help, was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences in San Diego in February 2010. Sharon is currently a Child Protective Services Social Worker in Santa Clara County, a culturally diverse county in Northern California. Her research interests include family violence, resilience, and cultural competence, with specific focus on ethnic and other cultural factors as they relate to outcomes for those exposed to multiple forms of violence.
email: sborja@uw.edu

Tracy Brazg
received her BA from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, and completed the joint MSW and MPH program at the University of Washington in 2008.  During her time in the Master's program, Tracy worked as a youth development coordinator for a local Youth and Family Services agency and was involved in the community’s initiative to address adolescent alcohol and other drug use.  Her master's thesis drew on the community-based participatory action research method of Photovoice to engage a group of high school students in a youth-led community assessment of the issue. Interested in building bridges between disciplines, between communities and researchers, and between research and practice, Tracy has been using her interdisciplinary perspective to conduct qualitative research in a variety of settings ever since.  Tracy is currently employed by Seattle Children’s Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics, where she works as a Qualitative Research Associate.  As she continues to pursue her interest in bioethics, she is attracted to the field of social work because the guiding values and ethical principles of the profession match many of those inherent in bioethics—justice, dignity, and worth of a person.  Tracy’s research interests include bridging the two fields of inquiry, especially with regards to the way bioethical decisions are made in the clinical setting.
email: tbrazg@uw.edu

Yu-Ling Chang
obtained her MSW from National Taiwan University in 2006. Her master’s thesis explored microenterprise as a potential employment means for economically disadvantaged women in Taiwan. After her graduation, she worked as a local social worker in the Zhongzheng Welfare Service Center of Taipei City Government for four years. She has extensive experience working with low-income families and underprivileged people in urban areas. Yu-Ling’s research interests include anti-poverty programs, social security systems, and family policies and services. She was selected to be the 2012-2014 Social Policy Research (SPR) Fellow of the West Cost Poverty Center (WCPC). Yu-Ling is currently participating in a research project that explores the variations among state-level social safety nets for low-income working families and how those multiple programs respond to the Great Recession and the effects on household well-being.
email: yulingsw@uw.edu

Elizabeth Circo
comes to the University of Washington from the Annie E. Casey Foundation in Baltimore, where she was a program assistant. Before that, she was the Project Coordinator for the Mayor's Advisory Committee on Child Abuse and Neglect and a counselor for abused, abandoned and neglected children in Washington, DC, where she earned a BA in philosophy and an MSW from Howard University. She also volunteered her time facilitating a young women's support group. Elizabeth's research interests center on the social development, adaptation and resilience of girls of color, especially as related to child sexual abuse, sexual orientation and other gender-related issues. She is also interested in studying children abusing other children and gender-based bullying.
email: ecirco@uw.edu

Meg Cristofalo
earned an MSW from the University of Washington (1997) and a Master's in Public Administration from the University of Pennsylvania. She has practiced medical and psychiatric social work in inpatient and emergency room settings, and played an instrumental role in developing and implementing an emergency room social work program at a local medical center. Meg's research focus is utilizing critical qualitative methods to study the experiences and processes of patients and providers in community mental health care.
email: cristofa@uw.edu

Amelia Seraphia Derr
Originally from Chicago, Amelia received her BA from Macalester College and her MSW, with a concentration in multi-ethnic community practice, from the University of Washington.  Amelia completed her master’s research on international human trafficking and then worked for five years as a program director at a nonprofit providing immigrant advocacy and support services. She was also a lecturer at the University of Washington School of Social Work for six years, teaching social work practice, history, and theory courses. Amelia is currently a doctoral candidate studying discrimination and acculturative stress during the immigrant incorporation process.  Amelia has been a National Institute of Mental Health Prevention Research Trainee, a National Institute of Health Clinical Translational Research Trainee, a Clarke Chambers Social Welfare History Fellow, and is now a Magnuson Health Sciences Scholar. Her dissertation examines disparities in mental health care access for immigrants and the role of social and religious support in the help-seeking process.
email: seraphia@uw.edu

Danae Dotolo
graduated from Arizona State University in 1999 with an MSW concentration in Planning, Administration, and Community Practice. Before moving to Seattle, she worked as a public policy advocate for the Arizona Coalition Against Domestic Violence. For the last several years, she has worked as a research coordinator with the University of Washington (UW) End-of-Life Care Research Program. She has been responsible for the coordination of two multi-site NIH-funded studies focusing on measuring the quality of end-of-life care and improving physician communication skills. She has developed an interest in end-of-life care as it relates to social work practice, health care delivery, policy, and ethics. She is interested in issues of unequal access and disparity in care, particularly for LGBT patients and their partners.
email: danaed@uw.edu

Christopher Fleming
majored in sociology as an undergraduate in order to pursue his interests in social justice, theory, and human behavior. In his professional career, he applied these interests to practice by serving as a counselor in an urban North Carolina juvenile detention center where he worked with a diverse group of high-risk youth. This work involved supervising and conducting individual, group and crisis interventions for youth detained by the county and state. Although this work was both challenging and fulfilling, Christopher decided to complete an MSW at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, in order to further enhance and refine his practice and research skills. His first field placement was an experimental position with the Middlesex County Family Court that allowed him to build upon his research skills and interests in juvenile justice, court decision-making, and alternatives to incarceration. He then expanded on his practice skills and interests in adolescent mental health by working as a counselor in a school for youth with learning and emotional disabilities. In 2010, he co-presented a workshop on the use of technology in teaching at the Council on Social Work Education's Annual Program Meeting. Based in his work and educational experiences, Christopher’s research interests include juvenile justice policy and administration, preventive interventions and alternatives to incarceration, the relationships of environment and culture with the mental health and behavior of youth, social work education and quantitative research methods.
email: cmf45@uw.edu

Sharmistha Ghosh
joined our program as a transfer student from the UW Women’s Studies doctoral program. After completing two Master’s degrees, first in political science at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India, and then in public affairs at The University of Texas at Austin, Sharmistha worked in the Center for Women’s Development Studies (CWDS) in New Delhi on a project on the pioneers of the microfinance movement among the women in India.  Her research interests center on the issue of violence against women, specifically violence against women within the household in developing countries. As a social welfare scholar, her goal is to study how interventions made by microfinance programs affect women’s lives within the private sphere, particularly in terms of violence.
email: ghoshs@uw.edu

Amanda Gilman
completed her MSW (with an emphasis in social policy) at Loma Linda University in June, 2009. She received her BA in Sociology from California State University Long Beach. Amanda completed her field practicum at the San Bernardino Mayor?s Office under the Director of Community Safety and Violence Prevention, where she worked extensively on community-based intervention and prevention strategies for reducing youth violence and gang activity. During this time she also served as the project manager for a county-wide juvenile delinquency court assessment. In her doctoral studies she plans to continue researching issues pertaining to juvenile delinquency, including juvenile justice policies, prevention strategies, and the relationship to mental health.
email: abg5@uw.edu

Kari Gloppen
received a master of public health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2002, with a concentration in health behavior and health education.  Kari worked at the CDC in the Division of Adolescent and School Health for 8 years as a health scientist.  Her work focused on synthesizing research and providing guidance for schools on ways to promote health by increasing protective factors in the lives of children and adolescents, such as family involvement in their child's education, students' sense of connectedness to school, and implementing programs and policies that use principles of positive youth development. Her primary areas of interest include understanding the key risk and protective factors of adolescents at the individual, family, peer, school, and community levels; using those factors to identify or develop policies and interventions that have a significant and positive impact on the lives and well-being of young people; and then understanding how to scale these programs up to have greater impact. 
email: kgloppen@uw.edu

Sara Green
holds a BA in Women’s Studies from UC Santa Cruz and an MA in Counseling Psychology from the University of Santa Monica. She completed her MFT traineeship practicum at the UCLA Center for Community Health. Sara’s doctoral research aims to investigate the mechanisms that mediate the effects of stressful circumstances and promote or shape positive pathways for child and family mental health and psychosocial functioning. In particular, Sara is interested in the bio-psycho-social-spatial complexities in the lives of children and families. Under a broadly defined focus on vulnerable families in context, she incorporates issues and aspects of place and space into her mental health research agenda. Sara is an NIMH Prevention Research Trainee and is currently working on several projects focusing on the effects of cumulative stress on child, adolescent, and adult functioning and mental health, with particular attention to military service members, veterans, and military families. Prior to coming to the University of Washington, Sara worked with the clinical intervention team at the UCLA Headquarters for the FOCUS Project, a family-level, resiliency training prevention program that serves active duty military families at bases across the country and as a therapist in the UCLA Child and Family Trauma Clinic.
email: srgreen@uw.edu

Isaias Hernandez
received a BA from UC Riverside in 2006 and an MSW from Cal State Long Beach in 2008. Upon completion of his MSW, Isaias was employed by the County of Riverside’s department of mental health and was trained in multiple evidence based practices to provide services to children, adolescents, and families in the outpatient setting. He also received specialized training to provide treatment to adolescent sex offenders and survivors of trauma. To further enhance his clinical and research skills, Isaias became the project coordinator of a three phase study at UC Irvine that examined the validity and use of a risk assessment tool in the state of California's division of juvenile justice. This study involved evaluating (1) the inter rater reliability of state employees who regularly administer the assessment tool (2) the concurrent validity of the measure with theoretically relevant constructs (3) assessing the predictive utility of the measure for future arrests and infractions. As a result of his research and clinical experiences he is interested in understanding the risks and resiliencies of disadvantaged youth, intervention and program effectiveness, mental health and the law, and the application of research to promote positive development of policy and clinical practice in juvenile justice and mental health settings.
email: irhernan@uw.edu

Charles Hoy-Ellis
earned his BA in Psychology at Seattle University and completed his MSW at the University of Washington in 2004. Subsequently he went to work at Seattle Counseling Service for Sexual Minorities where he provided services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals, families, and groups as a psychotherapist, substance abuse counselor, and HIV-Specialist. He is also a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker (LICSW). Currently a Doctoral Candidate in Social Welfare, his scholarship focuses on health and mental health disparities among LGBT older adults and how these are informed by the intersections of identity and aging in a heteronormative society. He is currently assisting with the Caring and Aging with Pride Project (CAP), the first federally-funded national project to study health and wellness among LGBT older adults and their caregivers.1 He intends to continue to serve our LGBT elders through continued research and teaching. email: ellisc@uw.edu
1. Funding provided by the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute on Aging: R01 AG026526 (Fredriksen-Goldsen, PI)

Ji Young Kang
obtained her MSW from Yonsei University in Korea. She worked for National Assembly in Korea for 2 years as a staff for a legislator, assisting on implementing social welfare policy, especially poverty intervention policy and pension scheme. Ji Young, who is mainly interested in poverty and inequality and the social security program, wants to explore how labor market inequality is affected by factors such as the socioeconomic status of parents, education, gender, and race, and how labor market inequality, once established, accumulates or changes throughout one's lifetime. She likes to study the different forms of the labor market inequality mechanism in which inequality can manifest itself under different social policy settings, and at which point of the inequality process the intervention policies can work more effectively. Her interests also include health inequality and comparative welfare states study.
email: jyk84@uw.edu

BoKyung Elizabeth Kim
received her BA from UCLA and her MSW from the University of Michigan. During her master's program, Elizabeth interned at Alternatives for Girls, a non-profit agency in Detroit that serves homeless and at-risk teenage girls/young women. Also, as a research assistant to Dr. Rosemary Sarri, Elizabeth looked at runaway youth from the foster care system to find out how many of them entered the Juvenile Justice System and the Adult Criminal Justice System. In her doctoral studies, Elizabeth hopes to look at youth who are in the Juvenile Justice System with experience in the Child Welfare System. By addressing the disadvantages these youth experience, she hopes that her research will be a resource for future policy change.
email: bethbk@uw.edu

Jeffrey (Bart) Klika
completed his bachelor’s degree in Psychology at the University of Montana in 2002. In Montana, Bart worked for an organization that provided specialized treatment for children diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder. He worked as both a direct care staff in a group home and as a community-based case manager. Bart received his master’s degree from the University of Chicago in 2008. While in Chicago, he provided counseling services for adolescents at-risk for substance use disorders in addition to providing general counseling services to children and families. At University of Chicago, Bart was a research assistant on the Infant and Child Development Project. His current research focuses on the causes and consequences associated with experiences of family violence and the pathways and mechanisms associated with resilient functioning for maltreated individuals.  For the past three years, Bart has worked as a research assistant on the Lehigh Longitudinal Study.  Bart is currently a fellow through the Doris Duke Foundation and Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago examining the prevention of child abuse and neglect.
email: bklika@uw.edu

Allison Kristman-Valente
graduated from the UW MSW program in 2003. She is interested in intervention and prevention research with substance abusing women with complex trauma histories: specifically, how the role of social, familial, and type of violence factors impact drug behaviors in women with co-occurring substance use and PTSD; etiology of gender differences in substance use trajectories in maltreated youth; and how we can include core constructs such as historical family trauma and patriarchal oppression into explanatory variables as part of the study matrix. She is currently working with the Lehigh Longitudinal Study looking at gender differences in the etiology of substance use among maltreated children across the lifespan with Todd Herrenkohl as well as investigating the effects of trauma specific factors on future interpersonal conflict in substance-using women with Elizabeth Wells. Allison is an NIMH Prevention Training Program Trainee.
email: ankv@uw.edu

Carrie Lanza
earned her MSW at University of Michigan with a concentration in community organizing.  Her work broadly explores participatory arts and media production in mezzo and macro-level practice and research.  This project has manifested in the development and teaching of a course entitled “Community Based Participatory Media” as well as in her dissertation, a genealogy of media-based welfare interventions during the Progressive era.  She served as director of the Native Youth Enrichment Program with the Indigenous Wellness Research Institute and as a program evaluator and social media consultant with the Center on Infant Mental Health and Development in recent years. She currently teaches in the Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences department at University of Washington, Bothell.
email: clanza@uw.edu

Mei-Yi Lee
(Indigenous name: Ciwang Teyra; Truku nation in Taiwan) earned her BSW from National Taiwan University (2006), and her MSW from the Washington University in St. Louis (2011) with a concentration in Social and Economic Development (SED). Since college, Ciwang has participated in the indigenous movement, especially for regaining her traditional tribal name and achieving tribal autonomy. She was the chair of Truku Youth Council and deeply involved in cultivating tribal young people. After graduating from college, she worked at Taiwan Association for Human Rights. She coordinated and cooperated with other agencies to launch social movements for making applicable social policies to minorities. Because of her tribal experience, she perceived that poverty and health disparities between indigenous and non-indigenous people are crucial issues in Taiwan. She is interested in focusing her research on poverty and health in Indigenous population. 
email: ciwang@uw.edu

Jessica LePak
completed her MSW years at UC Berkeley, where she received a fellowship from the National Association of Social Workers, a merit-based fellowship from UC Berkeley, and award from American University in Washington, DC. She also completed a maternal and child health epidemiology graduate certificate program at the University of Arizona, for which she was awarded a full scholarship. Jessica has worked with a diverse set of colleagues that include academics, federal employees, presidential appointees, tribal leaders, and mental health and social service providers. As a program coordinator at the Native American Health Center in Oakland, California, she helped develop federal and other grants. Most recently she served as a consultant for a researcher organization to provide cultural advising, project conceptualization, and writing for a National Institute of Health grant
Her research goals include working to positively impact health disparities among American Indians, Alaska Natives, other Indigenous people, as well as LGBTQQI2-S individuals. Health disparities, including mental health disparities, among Native peoples are striking and much research is still needed to understand the complexities of these disparities. One particular area of interest of is prevention of suicide and suicide attempts through strengthening protective factors and building environments that are safe. Another area of interest involves research into the disproportional representation of American Indian and Alaska Native children in the child welfare system.
email: jlepak@uw.edu

Joe Mienko
completed an MSW from the University of Washington in June of 2010. He has over five years of experience working with children and families involved in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. During his undergraduate education, Joseph served as a research assistant in the psychology labs at both Grand Valley State University and Michigan State University. He has also served as an intelligence analyst with the US Army where he gained experience in the analysis of geographic and demographic data. Joseph’s primary research interests include the application of epidemiological and econometric techniques to child welfare data. Joseph is also interested in research related to assessment and intervention in cases of child neglect. 
email: mienkoja@uw.edu

Christina Miyawaki
obtained her MA in Gerontology from San Francisco State University(2006) and her MSW from the University of California, Berkeley with a concentration in gerontology (2008). She interned as a bi-lingual care manager at a private non-profit senior social service agency, Japanese American Services of the East Bay (JASEB) while earning her MA degree. Upon graduation from Cal Berkeley, she was hired as the Director of Programs and Administration at JASEB, evaluating current services and programs, creating new ones, supervising MSWs, and writing grant proposals to support the agency. Her recent research focus has been the needs of culturally sensitive services for Japanese and Japanese American baby boomers and seniors. Her research interest, however, include not only community practice and service delivery; program planning and development; policy analysis and changes; but also community mental health and culturally competent treatment for older adults.
email: chrismi@uw.edu

Sarah Mountz
received her MSW from Columbia University in 2003. She has been working in various areas of the child welfare system for the past six years, first in Portland, Oregon, and later in New York City, where she worked first with LGBTQ Adolescents residing in congregate foster care and later with birth parents in infant adoption. Her research interests include evaluating and strengthening services to LGBTQ youth in care through enhanced cross-systems collaboration and the development of additional permanency resources. She is particularly interested in the strengths and needs of youth of transgender experience within the foster care system.
email: smountz@uw.edu

Roy L. Old Person, Jr.
earned his MSW from Columbia University in 1999. Most of his career prior to returning to school was spent in New York City as a medical social worker at New York Presbyterian Hospital's HIV/AIDS center providing case management and individual/group mental health services to adult men and women. He was also employed as a clinician in Santa Fe, NM, at Southwest C.A.R.E. Center providing case management and mental health services among HIV-positive clients. 
Roy's research interests focus on the HIV/AIDS epidemic among Native American populations with a focus on Native American male sexuality and sexual behavior. Roy is a CSWE fellow.
email: royo@uw.edu

Nancy Lynn Palmanteer-Holder
is a doctoral candidate at the University of Washington School of Social Work; in 1991 she earned her MEd, from WSU, and in 1985 her BEd, from EWU. For 25+ years, she has worked in education, counseling, community development, and administration. Her research interest is to advance Tribal-Based Participatory Research (TBPR) as an indigenizing tool to inform policies, processes, interventions, and systems changes in reducing tribal health and social inequities. Currently, she is a Research Associate to Dr. Bonnie Duran, Director for UW Center of Indigenous Health Research, on a National Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) Processes and Outcomes study, along with assisting a National CBPR Advisory Committee led by Dr. Nina Wallerstein, University of New Mexico. Per Lynn’s research interest, this specific study partners with the Navajo Nation Health Research Review Board, and National Congress of American Indians Policy Center. Her dissertation proposal uses a critical indigenous qualitative participatory design to investigate local causes, gaps, and solutions to health & social inequities. Using this research-policy nexus, Lynn hopes to contribute to the knowledge gap within and among five Washington State Tribes as they prepare for the upcoming National Indian Health Care Reform Legislation.
email: nh@uw.edu

Dana Prince
graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with an MPH in 2008. She brings over ten years of experience working in community-based practice with diverse youth. For six years, she worked at the University of Pennsylvania Netter Center for Community Partnerships. During her tenure, Dana oversaw a robust school day peer health education program that positioned youth as deliverers—and not merely recipients—of health education. As a prevention scholar, Dana is interested in understanding the ways that physical and social environments are experienced by young people living in urban spaces. She is investigating how young people’s meaning-making processes of their lived experience inform beliefs about the future and future possibilities. Dana is interested in strengthening protective factors like positive self concept and hope that can bolster young people’s abilities to attain in school despite substantive structural barriers. Dana works with Dr. Paula Nurius on research examining the effects of cumulative stress on physical and mental health outcomes of young people as well as educational and employment status. She is an NIMH Prevention Training Program trainee. 
email: dprince@uw.edu

Katie Querna
graduated with an MSW from Columbia University in 2008 (after many years of professional and geographic transience) and subsequently “settled” in Seattle in the Fall of 2008. She taught public health classes at Highline Community College and worked at Public Health Seattle/King County coordinating an HIV behavioral surveillance study examining three high prevalence populations. She is interested in exploring the social influences of and perceptions of and about sexual behavior, sexual decision making, and ultimately sexual health among various populations.
email: kquerna@uw.edu

Maria Rodriguez
earned her MSW from the University of Pennsylvania, where her work focused on housing policy, community organizing and community development. Maria’s social work practice experience includes time spent as a community organizer, a program evaluator, and a case manager in the Philadelphia homeless shelter system. Her organizing activities have included training social justice advocates on non-violent tactics and other tools around the country with Training for Change, a non-profit organization based in Philadelphia and serving as the President of the Board of Director for Casino-Free Philadelphia, a grassroots organization seeking to eliminate predatory gambling businesses in Philadelphia. Some of her most rewarding community development activities included instructing inner-city youth in grades 3-12 and their families in yoga and other mindfulness techniques. She is currently a Social Policy Research fellow with the West Coast Poverty Center, where she seeks to further her research on community development organizations and their relationship with municipalities, land-use policies in distressed urban communities, contemporary social movements (particularly anti-authoritarian movements established and sustained by people of color), community organizing as social work practice, and non-profit organizational development.
email: myr@UW.edu

Jessica Rodriguez-Jenkins
graduated with her BSW and MSW from the University of Washington. Following her graduation with her MSW in 2006 she worked in Juneau, Alaska, at a non-profit community mental health clinic serving children and families. Jessica worked within a variety of programs, including an early childhood mental health program, and served as an early childhood mental health consultant for the Tlingit and Haida early head start programs in South East Alaska. She also worked as a family out-patient therapist, and with homeless teens and young adults. She is interested in promoting early childhood mental health through strengthening parenting practices, improving parent-child relationships, and understanding cultural and contextual factors that influence parenting beliefs, specifically within marginalized families. Jessica’s current research interests include examining the cultural and contextual nature of parenting beliefs and behaviors, understanding the experience of marginalized parents and families, and promoting culturally informed social welfare practice. Jessica is currently an NIMH Prevention Training Program Trainee.
email: janrj@uw.edu

Ebasa Sarka
earned his MSW from the University of Washington in 1996.  His study focused on multiethnic practice with children, youth, and families. Thereafter, he worked in the public child welfare field for six years in capacities ranging from child abuse and neglect investigator to child welfare workforce trainer.  He served as a Practicum Instructor with the Child Welfare Training and Advancement Program, a collaborative project between the UW School of Social Work and the State of Washington's Division of Children and Family Services. The program provides advanced practicum experience and training to graduate students preparing to work in the State's child welfare agency. He has also taught courses ranging from biology and its practical and epistemological application in social workers, to child welfare practice, and policy analysis to students at the bachelor's and master's levels.  Ebasa received a Presidential Minority Fellowship for 2004-05, and was a CSWE/MFP Fellow from 2006-09.
Ebasa’s research interests include evidence-based and culturally responsive intervention models, and the analysis of racial, ethnic, and cultural factors in child welfare policies and their practice implications.  He has worked with institutions, including Casey Family Programs, in efforts to understand and address the disproportionate representation of children of color in the child welfare system.  Ebasa is currently completing his dissertation titled, “Effects of Childhood Adversities on Resilient Adult Functioning: The Roles of Racial Identity and Discrimination across Racial Groups.”
email: sarkae@uw.edu

Katie Schultz
completed her MSW from the University of Washington in 2002. Her social work experience includes working with sexual assault survivors, homeless youth, and an economic justice campaign. Prior to starting the PhD program, she served as the Administrative Director at the University’s Indigenous Wellness Research Institute. While at the Institute she also served as the Assistant Director for the HONOR Project, a five-year seven-city health survey of American Indian Two-Spirit men and women and participated in local, state and federal grant development and management. An enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, Katie’s work is currently focused on the Yappalli project – an effort to create a health promotion model using Choctaw-specific values around health, facilitated in part by re-walking the Choctaw Trail of Tears in June, 2012. Katie’s academic interests also include violence prevention in Indian Country, particularly violence against Indigenous women, and the development of innovative conceptual and methodological approaches to research in rural and AIAN communities.
email: kans@uw.edu

Quentin Red Eagle Smith
was born and raised in Seattle, Washington. His mother is full-blooded Sioux from Montana, and his father, deceased, was from the Umpqua tribe located near Grand Ronde Oregon. Quentin is the sixth of eight children. He lived and worked for Southern Cal. Edison in Los Angeles for four years until he got tired of the smog and over-population and moved back to Seattle. Then he worked as a bus driver for King County Metro for nearly ten years until returning to school.
Quentin earned his Master’s degree in Vocational Rehabilitation from Western Washington University in Bellingham in 2004. Since then he has been a Voc/Rehab counselor in the Olympia area working mostly with the Native American populace. In his own words: “Throughout my lifetime I’ve felt that I’ve been a one-man crusader for Native American Rights, equality, and basic common respect, and now I find myself impatiently waiting for my studies to begin in the fall of 2007 so I can carry on with my crusade.”
Quentin’s research focus is on working closely with the Indigenous Wellness Research Institute in all capacities to promote the health and welfare of indigenous populations.
email: quents@uw.edu

Chiho Song
completed his BA (2005) and MSW (2007) at Seoul National University, Korea, and since graduating has worked as a researcher at the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs in the Division of Basic Social Security Research where he was involved in a variety of research projects associated with poverty measurement, collecting information on poverty-related factors, and analyzing the outcomes of policy activation for improving the status of marginalized social groups. His primary research interest lies in how poverty is measured and what impact policies have on it — how existing social mechanisms influence poverty. He is interested in quantitative studies for measuring poverty and developing anti-poverty strategies, in estimating the national minimum living cost, and disentangling the determinants of poverty and its effects on socioeconomic status of the underprivileged with a focus on linking research to policy and examining how research results are used by policy makers. His goal is to do in-depth research on the determinants of economic vulnerability and the effects on the disadvantaged.
email: chsong79@uw.edu

Heather Storer-Smith
earned her MSW from the University of Washington in 2004, and since then she has worked extensively in the fields of positive youth development and teen dating violence. Prior to coming to the UW, she worked as the Program Manager for the Youth Development Initiative in the Bay Area and previously coordinated a Teen Dating Violence prevention program in New York. A common thread throughout Heather’s work and academic history is a sincere commitment to partnering with youth to promote equitable relationships and communities. Her research interests include youth participation as a tool for teen dating and domestic violence prevention, the reclaiming of authentic youth spaces, youth engagement as a social justice issue, and capacity building for organizations, institutions and communities to support grassroots reforms.
email: hlstorer@uw.edu

Miriam Valdovinos
completed her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Psychology at California State University, Fullerton. Her master’s thesis qualitatively investigated the parenting experiences Latina survivors of intimate partner abuse underwent with their children. Prior to returning to graduate school, Miriam worked with the Texas juvenile justice system as the Research and Statistics Coordinator for a county-run detention center and juvenile probation department. Previous to working with youth in the juvenile justice system, Miriam spent several years working with Latina victims of intimate partner abuse in various settings including community outreach centers, emergency shelter, transitional housing program, and school settings. As she pursues a doctorate degree, she is interested in combining both her previous research experience and her field work in her future research endeavors. She is interested in investigating intimate partner abuse and its deleterious effects that plague our communities. Specifically, she wants to investigate intimate partner abuse and the effects it has on undocumented Latina women and their children. Most recently, she is examining the romantic relationships of undocumented young (ages 18-30) Latina women and the power dynamics that are present in their relationships. For most young people, identity formation and engaging in romantic relationships are important aspects of their adolescent and adult transitions. Stigma may play a powerful role in shaping choices about concealment and disclosure of undocumented status in their relationships. Power dynamics within these relationships such as social stigma and risk of being exposed or discovered may complicate the relationships. However, little is known about the ways in which undocumented status constrains decisions and experiences such as engaging in romantic relationships particularly for younger undocumented Latina immigrants. Ultimately, through her research she wants to be a catalyst in the ways in which social workers engage with undocumented survivors of intimate partner abuse as well as understanding how healthy romantic relationships may serve as a source of social support and strength for undocumented young women.
email: miriam80@uw.edu

Eric Waithaka
is a 2005 graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, earning a Master's in Social Work. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Community Development from Daystar University in Kenya. Eric’s scholarly interest broadly stated revolves around young adults, poverty, inequalities, social institutions and public policy interventions. Eric examines the above issues in the context of young adults’ transitions into adulthood both in the U.S. and in Sub-Saharan Africa. Specifically, he is interested in the ways in which young adults’ (18-34 years) go about building a variety of assets. He is also interested in the intergenerational transfer of advantage/disadvantage specifically focusing on the role of family wealth in young adults’ economic independence and financial well-being. His current research projects include: A narrative study on how young adults’ housing and living arrangements influence their thoughts and actions about their “possible future” in areas such as obtaining an education, working, operating a business and owing a home. He is also conducting an analysis of the mechanisms through which young adults desist or persist in their substance use and crime involvement. A third study he is involved in examines how public policy influences the ways in which low-income families manage their family life, work and finances. Prior to joining the UW School of Social Work, Eric worked as a Research Associate in evaluation research for social programs and services in the areas of child maltreatment, juvenile delinquency, substance abuse treatment and jail diversion initiatives. He has Social Work practice experiences as a Community Support Worker for young individuals with mental retardation and developmental disabilities (MR/DD). He has also worked as a Credit Officer for a micro-financing program for women groups, a Program Assistant for a girl-child education program and a rehabilitation program for commercial sex workers and as a Youth Leader in Kenya. 
email: waithaka@uw.edu