Faculty

Full-Time Faculty

Short biographies of full-time faculty members follow. Detailed biographies, including lists of publications, are in the Faculty and Research section of the CUSSW website (click here).

Sheila H. Akabas
Professor of Social Work; Director of the Center for Social Policy and Practice in the Workplace
B.S., Cornell; M.B.A., Ph.D., New York University. Professional interests: social work and the workplace, EAP services employee benefits, prevention, disability studies and rehabilitation, research, training, and management of labor force diversity. Publications (coauthor): Labor and Industrial Settings; Sites for Social Work Practice; Mental Health Care in the World of Work; Disability Management: A Complete System to Reduce Costs, Increase Productivity, Meet Employee Needs, and Ensure Legal Compliance; Work, Workers and Work Organizations: A View From Social Work (coeditor); Work and Well-Being: The Occupational Social Work Advantage; Disability Management: A Guide for Developing and Implementing Successful Programs; articles in the areas of social work and the workplace, labor and social policy, rehabilitation of persons with disabilities, equal employment opportunities, EAPs, substance abuse.

Michelle Sondra Ballan
Assistant Professor of Social Work
B.A., M.S.W., Rutgers; Ph.D., University of Texas (Austin). Professional interests: individuals with developmental and physical disabilities; sexual counseling for vulnerable populations; sexual offenders; and clinical interventions. Publications in the areas of disability and sexuality. Current research: evaluation of a psychoeducational sexuality education program for parents of children with mental retardation; counseling practices for sexual offenders with disabilities; evaluation of an offender program for inmates with disabilities; reduction of high-risk sexual behaviors among vulnerable populations; and ethical issues in sex research. Previously served as a clinical social worker at a rape crisis center, women’s center and various agencies serving people with disabilities.

Barbara Berkman
Helen Rehr/Ruth Fizdale Professor of Health and Mental Health
B.A., University of Michigan; M.A., University of Chicago, D.S.W., Columbia University. Professional interests: research in gerontology and oncology. Publications: over 100 articles, books and chapters on social work practice with geriatric patients, oncology patients, and other health and mental health conditions; social work health care curriculum needs; and outcome measurement. Awards and honors: W. K. Kellogg Foundation Fellowship in Health Care Administration 1978; Fellow, The Gerontological Society of America, 1985; Edith Abbott Distinguished Alumni Award, University of Chicago, 1986; Sarnat Lecturer, University of Southern California, 1986; National Association of Social Workers (Massachusetts chapter) Award for “Greatest Contribution to Social Work Practice,” 1987; Hyman Weiner Award for “Distinguished Scholarship Contribution to the Health Care Practice and Administration”; American Hospital Association, Society for Hospital Social Work Directors, 1987; Distinguished Practitioner, National Academy of Practice in Social Work, 1987; Helen P. Kapiloff lecturer, University of Houston, School of Social Work, 1987 Kenneth L. M. Pray Lecturer, University of Pennsylvania, School of Social Work, 1988; Ruth Knee/Milton Wittman Award for “Outstanding Achievement in Health/Mental Health Policy,” National Association of Social Work, 1994. Fellow New York Academy of Medicine, 1997; 2002 CSWE AGE-SW Career Achievement Award; 2004 NASW Social Work Pioneer Award.

Gauri Bhattacharya
Senior Lecturer
M.A., Calcutta University, India; M.S.W., Adelphi Univeristy, NY; D.S.W., Adelphi University, NY. Professional Interests: Cultural diversity, health care access and outcome disparities, and HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment; Substance abuse prevention and treatment strategies for multiethnic communities; Evaluation of substance abuse and mental health illness treatment programs; Immigrant health research, with a focus on HIV prevention among South Asian immigrants to the U.S.; Globalization and its challenges for health, clinical practice, and social work curriculum building. Practice Experience: Professor Bhattacharya is a longtime NYS licensed clinical social worker, member of the Academy of Certified Social Workers, holder of the Qualified Clinical Social Worker and Diplomate in Clinical Social Work designations. She has more than a decade of clinical practice experience in substance abuse treatment and both adolescent and adult HIV infection prevention. Professor Bhattcharya has evaluated the social environmental situations of acculturating South Asian immigrant families in NYC and recommended strategies to enhance the school adjustment process for children from non-English speaking countries.

Denise Burnette
Professor of Social Work and Associate Dean
B.A., B.S., M.S.S.W., Tennessee; Ph.D., California (Berkeley). Professional interests: Social Work education, including educational outcomes and use of instructional technology; clinical practice and practice-related research with older adults and their families. Current research interests: Custodial grandparenting in urban families; self-health care for late-life chronic health conditions. Publications: articles and book chapters on health and mental health of older adults who are primary caregivers for their grandchildren and attitudes, beliefs and behaviors related to symptom management of chronic health conditions by older persons. Previous direct practice, supervision and consultation experience in health, geriatric, and psychiatric settings.

Marcy J. Carlson
Associate Professor of Social Work
B.A., Gordon College, Ph.D., University of Michigan. Professional interests: family structure and parenting, father involvement, child and adolescent wellbeing, social policy, poverty and inequality. Publications: articles on family structure, family relationships and child wellbeing; and articles on public policy and families. Current research: causes and consequences of fathers’ involvement with children, relationship quality and parenting, and predictors of marriage among unmarried parents.

Fang-pei Chen
Assistant Professor of Social Work

Grace H. Christ
Associate Professor of Social Work
B.A., Wheaton; M.A., Chicago; D.S.W., Columbia. Professional interests: social work practice and administration in health and mental health settings, children and adolescents, practice research clinical practice with individuals, couples, and families; AIDS; chronic illness; and childhood bereavement. Publications in the areas of oncology social work; AIDS; practice research; childhood bereavement; child, adolescent, and adult coping with cancer and other chronic illnesses; and caregivers. Formerly director of social work at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and social work practitioner at Payne Whitney Clinic in New York City. Current research: childhood bereavement and children’s and adolescents’ coping with stress.

Nabila El-Bassel
Professor of Social Work
B.S.W., Tel-Aviv; M.S.W., Hebrew; D.S.W., Columbia. Professional interests: substance abuse AIDS, family violence, social support, development and testing cognitive behavioral approaches and social network interventions. Publications: articles on substance abuse, AIDS, and social support. Research has been funded by private and federal agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institute of Health, and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Current research: addiction, homelessness, criminal justice, and health care arenas.

Ronald A. Feldman
Ruth Harris Ottman Centennial Professor for the Advancement of Social Work Education
B.A., Buffalo; M.S.W., Ph.D., Michigan. Professional interests: adolescent mental health, group treatment, peer influence, juvenile delinquency, and professionalization. Publications: senior author of Contemporary Approaches to Group Treatment; Children at Risk: In the Web of Parental Mental Illness; The St. Louis Conundrum: The Effective Treatment of Antisocial Youths; Advances in Adolescent Mental Health; numerous chapters and articles about adolescent behavior, group treatment, scapegoating, field research, and knowledge dissemination. Consultant or trustee for federal, state, and local governments, agencies, and foundations.

Irwin Garfinkel
Mitchell I. Ginsberg Professor of Contemporary Urban Problems, Chair of the Social Indicators Survey Center
B.A., Pittsburgh; M.A., Chicago; Ph.D. Michigan. Professional teaching and research interests: social welfare policy, poverty and income distribution, family, single parents, and child support. Publications: authored or co-authored over 150 scientific articles and eleven books on poverty, income transfers, program evaluation, and child support. The books include Earnings Capacity, Poverty, and Inequality; Income Tested Transfer Programs: The Case For and Against; Single Mothers and their Children: A New American Dilemma?; Assuring Child Support: An Extension of Social Security; Social Policies for Children; and, most recently Fathers Under Fire: The Revolution in Child Support Enforcement. His research on child support influenced legislation in Wisconsin and other American states, the US Congress, Great Britain, Australia, and Sweden. He is currently the co-principal investigator of the New York City Social Indicators Survey and the Fragile Families and Child Well being Study.

Robin Gearing
Assistant Professor of Social Work

Vincent Guilamo-Ramos
Associate Professor of Social Work and Population and Family Health
B.S., The College for Human Services (New York, NY); M.S.W., M.S., New York University; Ph.D., State University of New York at Albany. Professional interests: Latino & African American youth and sexual risk behavior, parent-adolescent communication, adolescent ATOD use, school-based services, intervention research. Publications: articles on adolescent sexual risk behavior and substance use, parent-adolescent communication about risk behavior, parenting practices in Latino families, prevention programs for reducing adolescent problem behaviors, data analysis in child and adolescent psychology. Previous practice and consultation: Dr. Guilamo-Ramos has worked at a number of New York City based social service agencies serving Latino youths and their families. Dr. Guilamo-Ramos is a national trainer on the “HIV /AIDS Spectrum Project (NASW- National Office). Current research: family-based interventions to reduce adolescent risk behavior.

Wen-Jui Han
Associate Professor of Social Work
B.A., National Taiwan University; M.S.W., UCLA; Ph.D., Columbia. Professional teaching and research interests: social policy with particular attention to children and families, poverty and inequality, immigrant and immigration policy, and statistics and research methodology. Publications: articles on maternal employment, child care, family leave policy, nonstandard work schedules, children’s cognitive and behavioral outcomes, and the immigrant children’s well-being. Current research: maternal employment and child well-being; nonstandard work schedules and child outcomes; cognitive and socio-emotional outcomes of children in immigrant families; and early parental employment (both mothers and fathers) and child outcomes over the child’s early life (from birth to school age).

André Ivanoff
Associate Professor of Social Work
B.S., North Dakota, M.S.W., Ph.D. Washington (Seattle). Professional interests: Suicidal behavior and coping in criminal justice populations, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, evaluation of clinical interventions and HIV risk reduction. Publications on suicidal behavior, HIV risk reduction, and clinical practice in criminal justice and other disenfranchised populations. Current research: HIV risk reduction in high-risk populations, application of Dialectical Behavior Therapy to criminal justice populations. Practice and consultation in management of suicidal behavior and Dialectical Behavior Therapy with out-patient and institutionalized criminal justice populations.

Sheila B. Kamerman
Compton Foundation Centennial Professor for the Prevention of Children’s and Youth Problems; Director, Institute for Child and Family Policy; Co-director Clearinghouse on International Developments in Child, Youth, and Family Policies
B.A., New York University; M.S.W., Hunter; D.S.W., Columbia. Professional interests: U.S. and comparative social policy; welfare state developments, personal social services; child and family policies; and international social welfare. Publications: author and coauthor of more than 30 books and 200 journal articles and chapters on social policy. Among most recent books (co-edited with Alfred J. Kahn): Family Change and Family Policies in Britain, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States; Early Childhood Education and Care: An International Overview; Beyond Child Poverty: Social Exclusion and Children. Current research and related activities: a 20-country study of Family Change, Family Policies, and Family Politics. Consultant to numerous U.S. and inter-national organizations and governmental agencies on children’s, women’s, and family issues and policies.

Neeraj Kaushal
Assistant Professor of Social Work
B.A., M.A., University of Delhi; Ph.D., City University of New York (Economics). Professional interests: immigration; welfare reform; social inequality; health insurance; globalization and international social welfare; research methods. Current research: welfare reform and the health insurance of US-born and immigrant low-income families; effect of 9/11 on immigrants, muslims and Arabs living in the U.S.; effect of 9/11 on New Yorkers; welfare reform and work

Vicki Lens
Assistant Professor of Social Work
B.S., M.S.W. State University of New York at Stony Brook; J.D., New York Law School; Ph.D., Yeshiva University. Professional interests: social policy, law and social work, welfare reform and administrative justice. Current research: welfare fair hearing system. Publications: articles in areas of interest noted above. Formerly legal aid attorney specializing in public assistance benefits and an Assistant Attorney General, New York State, Public Advocacy Division.

Dana Lizardi
Assistant Professor of Social Work
M.S.W. New York University; Ph.D. Fordham University. Professional Interests: Suicide attempt; Protective factors; Hispanics and mental health; Ataques de Nervios; Race, ethnicity and culture in mental health research. Practice Experience: Dr. Lizardi was a National Institute of Mental Health Research Fellow. She has comprehensive practice experience in the areas of child and adolescent mental health, family therapy, and crisis-intervention. She spent many years as a bilingual clinician in an inpatient psychiatry unit, a psychiatric emergency room, an adult ambulatory psychiatry department, and a child and adolescent psychiatry clinic. She has worked primarily with Latino clients.

Ellen P. Lukens
Associate Professor of Professional Practice
B.A., Earlham College; M.S.W., Fordham; Ph.D., Columbia. Professional interests: mental health and the family, chronic and severe mental illness, multiple family group treatment, educational and psychoeducational interventions, health literacy, stress and coping, siblings and mental illness, supervision, clinical services research, evidence-based practice, qualitative and quantitative methods. Publications: articles and chapters on psychosocial factors in childhood depression, schizophrenia and the family, insight and mental illness, multiple family group interventions, psychoeducation, trauma and diversity. Current research: impact of stress on persons with mental illness and their caregivers; siblings of persons with severe mental illness; impact of community trauma on diverse populations; cross-cultural psychoeducational interventions.

Michael MacKenzie
Assistant Professor of Social Work
B.Sc., M.Sc., University of Western Ontario; M.S.W., M.A., Ph.D., University of Michigan. Professional Interests: Social and biological processes in Developmental Psychopathology; Child maltreatment prediction and prevention in early childhood; Foster care placement trajectories and models of group care. Publications in the areas of biological and social aspects of development. Current research: Attachment and change processes in Foster Care; The accumulation of ecological risk and early child maltreatment; Behavioral and hormonal regulation in toddlers of depressed mothers followed from pregnancy through the first two years of life; Evaluation of the effects of an early relationship based intervention for burdened families on caregiver perceptions and behavior. Previous work with abused and neglected children in residential care in Canada, and in newborn neurobehavioral examinations with burdened families making the transition to parenthood.

James M. Mandiberg
Assistant Professor of Social Work
B.A. Earlham College, M.S.W. SUNY Stony Brook, Ph.D. University of Michigan. Professional interests: Human service and nonprofit organizations, social enterprise and entrepreneurship, innovation and its diffusion, organizational theory, organizational strategy, design of mental health systems, Japanese social service systems, autonomous organization of client communities. Current Research: International study of autonomously organized homeless encampments, social enterprise development in the U.S. and Japan, economic and infrastructure development of client communities, social movements in social services. Publications in mental health program design, innovation and its diffusion, international social work, and organizational strategy. Past experience as a public and nonprofit manager in mental health and public housing organizations. Prior social work teaching experience at Shikoku Gakuin University in Japan and the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

Brenda G. McGowan
Ruth Harris Ottman Professor of Family and Children’s Services
B.A., Wellesley, M.S.W., Boston College; D.S.W., Columbia. Professional interests: clinical practice and programming in family and children’s services, professional ethical issues and advocacy strategies. Publications (coauthor): Nurturing the One, Supporting the Many: The Center for Family Life in Sunset Park; The Continuing Crisis; Child Welfare: Current Dilemmas, Future Directions; Why Punish the Children? A Study of Children of Women Prisoners; Child Advocacy. Articles and chapters on policy and practice issues in family and children’s services and child welfare history. Current research: staff recruitment and retention in public child welfare.

Ronald Mincy
Maurice V. Russell Professor of Social Policy and Social Work Practice
A.B., Harvard; Ph.D., MIT. Professional Interests: Family support; income security policy; U.S. labor market; urban poverty. Current research interest: fragile families. Professional practice: Professor Mincy formerly served at the Ford Foundation in several programmatic positions related to the treatment of low-income fathers by U.S. welfare, child support, and family support systems. He previously taught in the economics departments at Purdue University, Bentley College, the University of Delware, and Swarthmore College, and also worked at the U.S. Department of Labor and the Urban Institute. He is a former co-chair of the Grantmakers Income Security Taskforce and is a Board Member of the Grantmakers for Children, Youth, and Families.

Ada Chan Yuk-Sim Mui
Associate Professor of Social Work
B.Soc.Sc., Chinese University of Hong Kong; M.R.E., Concordia Theological Seminary; M.S.W., Ph.D., Washington (St. Louis). Professional interests: social gerontology, family caregiving, long-term care, ethnicity, elderly mental health, quality of life issues, and international gerontology. Publications: “Caregiver Strain Among Black and White Daughter Caregivers: A Role Theory Perspective;” “Multidimensional Predictors of Caregiver Strain Among Older Persons Caring for Their Frail Spouses;” “Geriatric Depression Scale as a Community Screening Instrument for Elderly Chinese Immigrants;” “Depression Among Elderly Chinese Immigrants: An Exploratory Study;” “Correlates of Psychological Distress Among Mexican American, Cuban American, and Puerto Rican Elders in the U S;” “Stress, Coping, and Depression Among Elderly Korean Immigrants.” Other articles have been in the areas of long-term care, service utilization, validation of geriatric depression scale, and depression of frail elders and elderly immigrants. Current research: quality of life and depression among Asian American elders in New York City. Published books: “Long-Term Care and Ethnicity;” “The Knowledge and Foundations of Gerontology;” and “The Clinical Applications of Social Gerontology in China.” Awards and honors: Fulbright Senior Specialist Award; Honorary Fellow, Sau Po Center on Ageing, University of Hong Kong, and Honorary Professor of Social Work, Chongqing Normal University, China.

Edward J. Mullen
Willma and Albert Musher Professor for Life Betterment through Science and Technology
B.A., M.S.W., Catholic University; D.S.W., Columbia University. Professional interests: outcomes measurement, evidence-based policy & practice, knowledge dissemination & utilization, mental-health services research. Publications: books & collections: Evidence-based Practice in a Social Work Context - The United States Case; Special issue: Evidence-based policy and practice. Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention; Outcomes Measurement in the Human Services; Practitioner-Researcher Partnerships; Preventing Chronic Dependency; Evaluation of Social Intervention; recent chapters and articles: Outcomes measurement: A social work framework for health and mental health; Evidence-based Policy & Social Work in Healthcare; The evidence for and against evidence based practice; Facilitating practitioner use of evidence-based practice; A survey of practitioner adoption and implementation of practice guidelines and evidence-based treatments; Clinician and patient satisfaction with computer-assisted diagnostic assessment in community outpatient clinics; Practitioner adoption and implementation of evidence-based effective treatments and issues of quality control. Principal Investigator: NIMH Predoctoral Training Progam in Mental Health and Social Work # 5 T32 MH14623-25. Director, Willma & Albert Musher Center at Columbia University.

Margaret O’Neill
Senior Lecturer
B.S., Boston College; M.S., Columbia University School of Social Work; Ph.D., New York University. Professional interests: social work clinical practice; supervision; administration; strengths-based interventions for trauma and its reverberations across systems; vicarious trauma; community trauma; immigration trauma; historical trauma; world of work; social work practice in the workplace; organizational consultation and development; programming and supervision.

Rog�rio Pinto
Assistant Professor of Social Work
Dr. Rog�rio M. Pinto is a Brazilian-American psychiatric social worker with extensive clinical and community work with racial and ethnic minority populations in the United States. He specializes in community-based participatory HIV prevention research. He has a doctoral degree in social work from Columbia University and a postdoctoral fellowship from the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies at the New York State Psychiatric Institute funded by the National Institute of Mental Health. Dr. Pinto has numerous peer reviewed publications on HIV prevention and several community-based ones. Dr. Pinto has done most of his teaching and research in the United States and has also begun to expand his research in Brazil, where he has worked in three distinct projects. He was recently awarded a pilot study in Brazil by the International Association of School of Social Work to studying a community-focused model of disease prevention in Brazil, aimed at describing the role of social workers in the national Program for Family Health.

Mark Preston
Assistant Professor of Social Work
B.S., M.S.W., Arizona State University; M.P.A., Arizona State University; Ph.D., University at Albany, State University of New York. Professional interests: child welfare, human services management and public management, management training, organizational behavior and organizational theory, research methods, work motivation and work stress. Publications in the area of human service management, public management, and management training. Current research: examining work stress in county-based public welfare and child welfare agencies; determining the impact of contextual factors on the activity patterns of public sector human service managers; and evaluating the methodological rigor of social work management research. Previously served as a an administrator, manager, supervisor, and direct-service worker in public sector, private sector, and not-for-profit human service organizations in Arizona and Alaska, has conducted a number of organizational analyses for the State of Alaska's Department of Health and Social Services and served on several statewide advisory committees.

Marion Riedel
Associate Professor of Professional Practice
B.A., New York University; M.S.W., Hunter College; Ph.D., Columbia University. Professional interests: working with adolescents, women living with HIV/AIDS and their children, and persons who are chemically dependent. Training and supervising staff and developing and evaluating programs in applications of harm reduction principles. Developing and delivering structured interventions for clinical research trials, most recently on Motivational Interviewing (MI) and using MI to balance racial disparities in AIDS clinical trials. Publications: suicide, computerized information systems, and families affected by HIV/AIDS. Currently conducting national and international presentations in the areas of harm reduction, motivational interviewing, and working with families living with HIV/AIDS.

Victoria Rizzo
Assistant Professor of Social Work
B.A., College of Saint Rose; M.S.W., Ph.D., University at Albany, State University of New York. Professional interests: aging and health issues; impact of parent illness on school age children; cost-effectiveness of social work interventions in aging. Publications in the areas of cost-effectiveness and efficacy, sexuality and chronic illness; long term care. Current research: The Advanced Illness Coordinated Care Program: A multi-site RCT; Schenectady Builds: A partnership for an aging community; The New York State Capicity Building Program for Chronic Disease Self-Management Programs. Previously served as a medical social worker in a freestanding inpatient physical rehabilitation hospital in Upstate New York with specialities in pediatrics and spinal cord injury.

Steven Schinke
Professor of Social Work
B.A., M.S.W., Ph.D., Wisconsin. Professional interests: practice research; prevention; clinical interventions with children, youth, and families; cancer risk reduction; health behavior; evidence-based practice. Publications on computer-based approaches to deliver prevention programs for children and youth toward preventing violence; reducing risks of tobacco, alcohol, and drug abuse; preventing HIV infection; disseminating science-based approaches of prevention and treatment; and assessing dietary behavior associated with cancer risks. Articles published in: New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, American Journal of Public Health, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Preventive Medicine, Journal of Adolescent Health, Addictive Behaviors, Journal of Studies on Alcohol, Contemporary Pediatrics, Prevention Science, and The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse. Recently completed longitudinal project to manage national registry of evidence-based prevention and treatment programs for substance abuse, HIV infection, avoidable causes of cancer morbidity and mortality, and mental health disorders. Currently conducting research on computer-based clinical interventions to reduce alcohol abuse among adolescents, to prevent drug abuse and HIV infection among early adolescent women, and to modify dietary behavior among inner-city Black children.

Craig S. Schwalbe
Assistant Professor of Social Work
B.A., Concordia College, Moorhead, Mn.; M.S.W., Augsburg College; Ph.D. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Professional interests: clinical decision making; structured decision making; risk assessment; juvenile justice; chronic juvenile delinquency; risk and resiliency; event history analysis. Publications: articles on decision-making theories and empirical articles on risk assessment validation studies. Current research: developing clinically useful risk and needs assessment instruments to support juvenile justice decisions; explaining race and gender effects on risk assessment predictive validity. Previous direct practice experience: public child welfare case management and public and private mental health care for adults and children.

Katherine Shear
Professor of Psychiatry in Social Work
M.D. Tufts University. Professional Interests: Psychotherapy research; Anxiety disorders; Adult separation anxiety disorder; Bereavement and grief; Women's mental health. Practice Experience: After completing residencies in Internal Medicine and Psychiatry, and a research fellowship in psychosomatic medicine, Dr. Shear joined the faculty in the Department of Psychiatry at Cornell University Medical College. During her tenure at Payne Whitney Clinic she established the Department's first clinical research program in Anxiety Disorders. This multidisciplinary group served as an important training site for pre and post-doctoral students, fellows and faculty, and established strong collaborative links, both within Cornell and at other institutions. Dr. Shear's well funded research group obtained grants from NIMH, private foundations and pharmaceutical companies. Their work made a major contribution in the area of Panic Disorder, including theoretical and practice-based publications.

Barbara Levy Simon
Associate Professor of Social Work
A.B., Goucher College. M.S.S., Ph.D. Bryn Mawr College. Publications include Never Married Women, The Empowerment Tradition in American Social Work: A History, and articles on the history of social work, social welfare, philanthropy, and public health; women’s and gender studies; postcolonial contexts of social work practice; social work practice with gay, lesbian, and queer populations; and disability studies. Simon’s current research focuses on: 1) the history of faith-based social services and the First Amendment; and 2) the history of social services in New York City. Her practice has focused upon survivors of sexual assault and rape, community mental health, and conflict resolution around issues of diversity.

Mary Sormanti
Associate Professor of Social Work
B.A., Brandeis University; M.S.W., New York University; Ph.D., Boston College. Professional interests: chronic and life-threatening physical illness, end of life care, grief, bereavement, trauma, quality of life, social support, partner violence. Publications are in these areas of practice and research. Formerly a senior pediatric oncology social worker at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and Clinical Program Director of A Common Ground in New York City, a mental health program funded by Project Liberty in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001. Current practice includes individual, couples, and group work with adults coping with a range of psychosocial stressors including the death of a loved one. Current research includes examination of partner violence and HIV risk in older women.

Fred M. Ssewamala
Assistant Professor of Social Work
B.A. Makerere University (Uganda); MSW, Ph.D., Washington University (St. Louis). Professional interests: international social and economic development, anti-poverty policies (with emphasis on asset-building and asset-based policies, such as micro-entrepreneurship, homeownership, children’s educational savings accounts, and individual development accounts); gender and development; comparative social welfare; evaluative research. Current Research: Asset-ownership development, creating life options and health promotion among orphaned children in Uganda. Publications: articles in the areas of interest noted above. Formerly served at the Red Cross (Uganda) in several programmatic positions related to designing policies and programs for poverty alleviation and community development. Also worked in various managerial and supervisory positions at Justine Petersen Housing and Reinvestment Corporation a 501(c) (3) Missouri (USA) not-for-profit corporation that assists low-to-moderate income individuals and families become homeowners, access financial institutions, start their own micro-businesses, and accumulate assets.

Julien Teitler
Assistant Professor of Social Work and Sociology
B.S. UW-Madison; M.A., Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania. Professional interests: child and family policy, non-marital child-bearing, transitions to adulthood, inequality, research methodology. Recent publications on effects of prenatal care, welfare reform, surveying hard to reach populations, teen sexual behavior and fertility. Director of the Social Indicators Survey Center. Current research: racial and ethnic disparities in birth outcomes, non-marital cohabitation, father involvement with children, neighborhood effects.

Ronald G. Thompson, Jr.
Assistant Professor of Social Work
B.A., Southern Methodist University; M.S.W., University of Arkansas at Little Rock; Ph.D., Washington University in St. Louis. Professional interests: adolescent mental health, substance use, and HIV sexual risk behaviors; peer influence; aging out of foster care; development of social network intervention for adolescents in high risk contexts. Publications: educational experiences, mental health problems, sexual abuse, and HIV risk among adolescents in foster care; HIV training for rural mental health care providers; HIV and psychiatric clients with developmental disabilities. Current research: substance use among older adolescents in foster care; co-occurring mental health and substance use problems and HIV risk behaviors among adolescents in foster care; experiences and outcomes of youth who age-out of foster care. Past experience as direct practitioner and supervisor in psychiatric and substance abuse settings with adolescents and their families.

Jane Waldfogel
Professor of Social Work and Public Affairs
B.A., M.Ed., M.PA., Ph.D., Harvard. Professional interests: social policy, in particular women and social policy, child and family policy, and comparative social welfare policy. Publications: The Future of Child Protection: How to Break the Cycle of Abuse and Neglect, Securing the Future: Investing in Children from Birth to Adulthood, and articles and book chapters on women’s earnings, maternity leave, child care, child welfare, welfare, and child support. Current research: inequality in early childhood care and education; economic status, public policy, and child neglect; and work-family policies and child and family well-being.

Susan S. Witte
Associate Professor of Social Work; Associate Director of the Social Intervention Group
B.A. Duke; M.S.W. Connecticut, Ph.D. Columbia. Professional interests: practice research, clinical interventions targeting individuals, couples and families addressing HIV/STIs, substance abuse, violence, trauma and other related mental health consequences; female-initiated HIV/STI barrier methods; and services research. Publications: articles on HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, female condom acceptability and use, substance abuse, intimate partner violence, intervention research methods, including recruitment and process measurement. Current research: HIV/STI prevention among heterosexual couples, reducing barriers to service utilization among disenfranchised, urban women, developing support services for drug dependent fathers, and female condom use and availability.

Elwin Wu
Assistant Professor of Social Work
B.S., Case Western Reserve University; M.S., Columbia University; Ph.D., Harvard University. Professional interests: services research with offenders and the criminal justice system; clinical interventions and intervention research targeting HIV/STIs, substance abuse, and violence; clinical practice with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender populations; and application of advanced statistical methods in sociobehavioral research. Publications: articles on substance abuse treatment, sexual risk behavior, intimate partner violence, mental health, couples- and social network-focused research, and law-breaking behavior. Current research: sexual risk reduction among heterosexual and gay male couples; services research with drug-involved men perpetrating intimate partner violence; services research on alternative-to-incarceration programs; and combined behavioral and pharmacological treatment for women with comorbid alcohol abuse and PTSD

Marianne R. Yoshioka
Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs and Associate Professor of Professional Practice in Social Work
B.A., Western Ontario, M.S.W., Michigan Ph.D., Florida State. Professional interests: partner abuse among East Asian immigrant women, domestic violence and immigrant populations, substance abuse, HIV prevention, intervention design and development. Publications: articles and monographs on the impact of the cultural context on the experience of partner abuse, attitudes toward wife abuse among Asian ethnic communities, culturally appropriate measures for Asian Americans, intervention with family members of alcoholics, SAMSHA Treatment Improvement Protocol addressing the integration of family therapy and substance abuse treatment. Current research: the use of peer assistance to facilitate service utilization by Chinese and Cambodian immigrant women living with partner abuse; identification of cultural factors influencing the experience of partner violence among Chinese women. Previous practice experience in marriage and family therapy.

Allen Zweben
Associate Dean for Research and Professor of Social Work
B.A., Hunter College; M.S.W., Wurzweiler School of Social Work, Yeshiva University; Certificate in Advanced Social Welfare and D.S.W., Columbia University School of Social Work. Professional interests: substance abuse interventions, combining medication and behavioral therapy for alcohol problems, motivational enhancement therapy, HIV risk reduction, patient-treatment matching, brief intervention, screening, assessment and diagnosis of substance use problems, composite outcome measures and health disparities. Awards: Commendation from the Office of the Governor in the State of Wisconsin in recognition of leadership in advancing alcohol and behavioral health sciences. Publications: articles and book chapters on innovative assessment and treatment approaches for substance abuse problems. Current research: the COMBINE study, an NIAAA funded project examining the efficacy of combining pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy interventions for alcohol problems and Heart-to-Heart, a study testing the efficacy of combining alcohol and HIV risk reduction interventions for women. Formerly Director of the Center for Addiction and Behavioral Health Research (CABHR) and Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

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Adjunct Classroom Faculty

Sonia Austrian
Adjunct Professor
B.A., Wellesley; M.S., D.S.W., Columbia University

Ray Barbieri
Adjunct Assistant Professor
B.S.W, Wheelock College; M.S., Columbia University

Melanie Barrett
Adjunct Assistant Professor
B.B.A., Baruch College; M.A., Columbia University; M.Ph., Columbia University

Betty Barsa
Adjunct Assistant Professor
B.S., City College of New York; M.S., New York University; D.S.W., Columbia University

Kathryn Conroy
Adjunct Professor

Mary Jane Cotter
Adjunct Assistant Professor

Elizabeth Creel
Adjunct Lecturer

Moira Curtain
Adjunct Lecturer

Jeffrey Diaz
Adjunct Associate Professor
B.A., Fordham; M.S., Columbia University

Constance Douglas
Adjunct Lecturer

Lin Fang
Adjunct Assistant Professor
B.A., National Taiwan University; M.S.W., Hunter College

Matthew Feldman
Adjunct Assistant Professor
B.A., Brandeis University; M.S.W., Columbia University

Michael Friedman
Adjunct Assistant Professor
B.A., M.A., M.S.W., Columbia University

Teresa Gardian
Adjunct Associate Professor
M.S., Nebraska; D.S.W., Columbia University

Amanda Geller
Preceptor

Paul G. Getsos
Adjunct Lecturer
B.A., Rutgers University; One year post graduate work in Urban Planning, University of California, Berkeley

Richard Glover
Preceptor
B.A., Boston University; M.S., Columbia University

Geetha Gopalan
Preceptor

Katherine Gordy-Levine
Adjunct Professor
B.A., Delaware; M.S.S., Bryn Mawr College

Joy Greenberg
Preceptor
B.A., Tufts University; M.B.A., M. S. W., New York University

Idris Andrew Hamid
Adjunct Assistant Professor
B.A., University of Windsor; MSW, University of Toronto; Ph.D., University of Michigan

Anna Hedrick
Adjunct Senior Lecturer
B.A., Wichita State University; M.S., Columbia University

Heidi Horsley
Adjunct Assistant Professor
B.S., University of Utah; M.S., Loyola University; M.S.W., Columbia University; Psy.D, University of San Francisco

Leyla Ismayilova
Preceptor

Richard Johnson
Adjunct Assistant Professor
B.A., Yale University; M.S., Ph.D., Columbia University

Brendan Kelly
Preceptor

Yookyong Lee
Preceptor
B.A., University of Michigan; M.S.W., University of Michigan School of Social Work

Allen Levine
Adjunct Lecturer

Peggy Lovergine
Adjunct Lecturer

Arthur Lynch
Adjunct Associate Professor
B.A., M.S.W., Adelphi University; D.S.W., Columbia University

Judith Marks
Adjunct Lecturer
M.S.W., Columbia University

L. Donald McVinney
Adjunct Lecturer
B.A., State University of New York (Purchase); M.S., Columbia University

Clarener Moultrie
Adjunct

Wendy Naidich
Adjunct Assistant Professor

Duy D. Nguyen
Preceptor
B.A., M.S.W., Washington University

Eri Noguchi
Adjunct Assistant Professor
M.S., Columbia University School of Social Work; Ph.D., Columbia University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

E. Roberto Orellana
Preceptor

Enzo Pastore
Adjunct Lecturer

Beatrice Plasse
Adjunct Assistant Professor
B.A., SUNY Binghamton; M.S., Columbia University; D.S.W., Hunter College

Marcus Redding
Adjunct Assistant Professor

John Robertson
Adjunct Assistant Professor
B.A., St. John’s College; M.S., Rutgers University; Ph.D., Columbia University

Vanessa Rojas
Adjunct Assistant Professor

David Rosenthal
Adjunct Assistant Professor
M.S.W., Columbia University; Ph.D., The Union Institute and University

Sue Simring
Adjunct Lecturer
B.A., Pennsylvania State; M.S., D.S.W., Columbia University

Erica Smith
Preceptor

Kimiko Tanaka
Preceptor

Lauren Taylor
Adjunct Lecturer

Gretchen Thomas
Preceptor

Walter Vega
Adjunct Lecturer

Elaine Walsh
Adjunct Professor
B.A., Pace University; M.S.W., Ph.D. Fordham University

Dava Weinstein
Adjunct Lecturer
B.A., Boston University; M.S.W., Fordham University

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Adjunct Faculty Field Advisors

Diane Adams
M.S.W., Columbia University

Doris Benitez
M.S.W., New York University

Carol Brandi
M.S.W., Hunter

Debra Castaldo
M.S., Columbia University

Michael Chavis
M.S.W., Columbia University

Karen Chiel
M.S.W., Syracuse University

Hillary Colenso
M.Sc., Oxford University;
Ph.D., New York University

Elizabeth Creel
M.S., Columbia University

Moira Curtain
M.S., Columbia University

Sheri Duxin
M.S.W., New York University

Roberta Faulk
M.S.W., Smith College

Rita Gazarik
M.S.W., Fordham

Patricia Gray
M.S.W., Columbia University

Kenneth Graves
M.S., Columbia University

Charles Gray
M.S.W., New York University; D.S.W., Yeshiva

Claire Hall
M.S., Columbia University

Alissa Hammerman
M.S.W., Adelphi

Anna Hendrick
M.S., Columbia University

Barbara Immediato
M.S.W., Adelphi

Sandra Kahn
M.S., D.S.W., Columbia University

Florence S. Kohn
M.S.W., Adelphi

Dorthea Mitchell Levine
M.S.W. Fordham

Amarillis Lendorf
M.S.W., New York University

Elhanan Marvit
M.S.W., Adelphi

Judy Mason
M.S.W., University of Pennsylvania

Sandra Mecarini
M.S.W., Hunter

Amanda Mills
M.S., Columbia University

Dan Molloy
M.S.W., Hunter

Susan Myers
M.S.W., Wurzweiler, Yeshiva

Suzanne Murphy
M.S.W., Hunter

Joyce Nicholas
M.S., Columbia University

Anna Niedach
M.S.W., Adelphi

Patricia O’Brien
M.S.W.

Susan Reifer
M.S., Columbia University

Ana Rivera
M.S.W., Fordham

Geri Rogliere
M.S., Columbia University

Joe Rodriguez
M.S.W., Columbia University

Elise Sabatel
M.S., Columbia University

Sydney Scheiner
M.S.W., Houston

Gloria Scott
M.S.W., Hunter

Rona Shepherd
M.S.W., Wurzweiler

Roberta Shiffman
M.S.W., Fordham

Lorraine Tempel
M.S.W., Hunter; Ph.D., New York University

Susan Thaler
M.S., Columbia University

Kenneth Toback
M.S.W., Fordham

Sylvia Tuttman
M.A. Columbia Teachers College; M.S. Columbia University

Dorrine J. Vecca
M.S., Columbia University

Ovita Williams
M.S.W., Columbia University

Ellen Weinstein
M.S.W., Columbia University

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