Faculty and Administration
The Full- and Half-Time Faculty
Gail Steketee
Dean ad interim and Professor
Dr. Steketee, a member of the faculty since 1986, is serving as Dean ad interim from July 1, 2005 through June 30, 2007. From 1996 to 1999, she served as the School’s Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. A member of the Clinical Practice Department, Dr. Steketee has taught and conducted research on cognitive and behavioral treatments for anxiety disorders. She currently conducts NIMH-funded research on behavioral and cognitive treatment for body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) with colleagues at MGH, and assessment and treatment of compulsive hoarding problems, including in elderly people, with colleagues at Smith College and Hartford Hospital. She has also published extensively in these areas, including four books on obsessions and compulsions, three on compulsive hoarding, and more than 150 articles and chapters. Dr. Steketee received her MSS and PhD from Bryn Mawr.
Ruth Freedman
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs; Associate Professor
Dr. Freedman joined the School in 1984 as an adjunct assistant professor and became a full-time faculty member in 1990. She was appointed Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in 2003. Dr. Freedman’s research and policy interests include mental retardation and developmental disabilities, particularly in regard to families, health care decision-making, end-of-life care issues, and ethics. Her recent projects have focused on physical health, mental health, and quality of life of adults with intellectual disabilities. She has also conducted research on family and consumer service utilization and satisfaction with supports. Dr. Freedman received her master’s and doctoral degrees from Brandeis University.
Ken Schulman
Associate Dean for Enrollment Services and External Relations; Adjunct Associate Professor
Now in his twenty-eighth year with the School, Mr. Schulman assumed the position of associate dean in 1995. He had previously served as an assistant dean, and before that as director of admissions and financial aid. His current responsibilities include overseeing the School’s admissions and financial aid, as well as direct work in public and alumni relations and development. Since receiving his MSW from Boston College in 1977, Mr. Schulman has been involved in clinical social work, community organization, administration, planning, research, and teaching. As an adjunct associate professor he has taught courses in the School on oppression and racism, social work practice, social services in Cuba, and progressive social work practice.
Mena daSilva-Clark
Assistant Dean for Off-Campus Programs
Mena daSilva-Clark became affiliated with Boston University in 1988 and assumed the position of assistant dean in 2004. In this role, she is responsible for the overall administration, supervisory, and educational leadership of off-campus programs. Prior to joining the School, Ms. daSilva-Clark served as the Clinical Director of Outpatient Mental Health at the Lowell Community Health Center in Lowell, Massachusetts. She received her MSW from Simmons College, specializing in community mental health.
Jyothi Nandakumar
Assistant Dean of Finance and Personnel
Ms. Nandakumar became director of finance and personnel in 1996, and was promoted to assistant dean in 2004. She is responsible for the overall financial, personnel, and operations management of the School, including budget and grant accounting, and payroll activities.
Trudy Zimmerman
Assistant Dean for Field Education; Clinical Assistant Professor
Ms. Zimmerman has been affiliated with the School since 1980, when she developed a field unit for social work students at Jewish Memorial Hospital. Since 1984 she has been full time in the Field Education Department and has been assistant dean for field education since 1997. She teaches the seminar in supervision for new field instructors, Introduction to Clinical Social Work Practice and Social Work Practice Ethics, and the Integrative Field Seminar. Ms. Zimmerman received her MSSS from Boston University and her EdM from Harvard University.
Ina L. B. Frye
Director of Financial Aid
Ms. Frye has been with the School of Social Work since 1985, when she served as registrar. She assumed the position of director of financial aid in 1989, after two years as an assistant in the School’s Financial Aid Office. Ms. Frye received her BS from Boston University in 1980 and has been employed by the University since then.
Reeve Goldhaber
Director, Part-time Program Integration; Coordinator of the GEM Project
Ms. Goldhaber came to the School in 1990 after sixteen years at McLean Hospital Children’s Center, where she held positions as Administrative Social Worker in the Inpatient and Outpatient Departments and served as the Coordinator of Training for social work interns and fellows. She currently is responsible for the field education component of the northeastern Massachusetts (NEMA) off-campus program site. She teaches the Seminar for New Field Instructors and the Introduction to Field Education Seminar at the NEMA site. She also chairs the NEMA Advisory Board, consisting of agency representatives from the NEMA area. At the Charles River Campus, Ms. Goldhaber teaches the Field Preparation Seminar, for first-year, part-time Charles River students and serves as a faculty advisor. As Coordinator of the Boston GEM (Geriatric Education Model) Consortium Project, she oversees and coordinates a model training program, funded by The Hartford Foundation, through the Social Work Leadership Institute and by The Atlantic Philanthropies, through the Institute for Geriatric Social Work. Ms. Goldhaber received her MSW from Simmons College.
Edward M. Greene, Jr.
Director of Admissions
Mr. Greene assumed the position of director of admissions in 1998. He is responsible for the School’s overall recruitment program, and oversight of the processing of applications for admission. A 1992 graduate of the Boston University School of Social Work’s Southeastern Massachusetts Program, Mr. Greene has been an active alumnus. He was one of the alumni representatives to the School’s Admissions and Financial Aid Committee for four years and was a member of the Alumni Association Board from 1993 to 1998, serving as both president and vice president during his tenure. Before joining the School’s administrative staff, Mr. Greene was assistant director with Westwood/Pembroke Health Systems in Boston, where he was responsible for managing a sixteen-bed intensive residential program for adolescents. He has also held positions as a clinician, residential house manager, academic consultant, and undergraduate admissions representative.
Heidi Maitland
Registration Administrator
Ms. Maitland has been the Registration Administrator at the School since 1999. She is a thirteen-year employee of Boston University, having also held the position of advisor with the College of Arts and Sciences. Ms. Maitland has a BA in sociology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and an MEd in educational counseling from Salem State College.
Judith Perlstein
Associate Director of Field Education; Clinical Associate Professor
Ms. Perlstein began teaching at the School of Social Work in 1986 as an adjunct assistant professor while working full-time in community mental health as a practitioner, supervisor, and administrator. In 1993 she joined the Field Education Department where she is currently the Associate Director. She teaches the Integrative Field Seminar and the Seminar for New Field Instructors as well as the foundation courses in Human Behavior in the Social Environment. Her areas of interest are in mental health, substance abuse, and family therapy. Ms. Perlstein received her MSW from Smith College School for Social Work in 1974.
Deborah Sheehan
Director, Southeastern Massachusetts Program (SEMA)
Ms. Sheehan joined the School of Social Work in 2004, assuming the role of Director of the Southeastern Massachusetts Program (SEMA). In this role, she is responsible for the overall administrative and supervisory duties of the SEMA program’s two locations, one at Cape Cod Community College and the other at the Fall River satellite for the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. She manages all field placements for SEMA students, coordinates field-related seminars, and teaches the seminars for new field supervisors and integrative seminars for the students. Her twenty-six-year professional career began as a child care worker at The New England Home and includes social work in both private and public human service agencies, including the Departments of Social Services, Boston Children’s Services Association, and Dare Family Services. More recently, she had been an administrator at Simmons College, a member of the field education faculty at Boston College, and has taught at Bridgewater State College. Ms. Sheehan is a doctoral candidate at Boston College.
Cate Solomon
Director of Student Services
Dr. Solomon joined the School of Social Work as a part-time field advisor in 1990. Before assuming her current responsibilities as Director of Student Services in 2003, she served as the Dean of First Year Programs at Wheelock College and chaired the Social Sciences Department at Lasell College. Her teaching interests focus on how social workers create change in communities and organizations. She has taught courses in MSW programs at Smith College, Wheelock College, and Boston University. Dr. Solomon authored Active Learning Exercises for Social Work and the Human Services, published in 2000.Her research and activist interests center on helping people with low-income obtain educational opportunities. She received her MSW from Smith College in 1982 and her doctorate from The Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University in 1993.
Suzanne White
Macro Practice Field Education Coordinator
Ms. White joined the Boston University School of Social Work in 1995 as Macro Practice Field Education Coordinator. In addition to this role, she teaches the introductory courses in macro practice and social welfare policy, and the field education seminars for new macro practice field instructors and for foundation-year macro students. Prior to her work at the School of Social Work, Ms. White taught at Simmons College School of Social Work and worked in various macro capacities in the field of child welfare, specifically child protection. As executive director of the Middlesex Criminal Justice Institute, Inc., she led efforts to develop interdisciplinary training materials and videotapes that have been used by child protection professionals and to prepare children for court testimony. Ms. White is a graduate of Boston University School of Social Work.
The Full- and Half-Time FacultyMaryann Amodeo
Professor, Clinical Social Work Practice; Chair, Human Behavior in the Social Environment; Co-director, Center for Addiction Research and Services
Dr. Amodeo joined the School in 1986 with ten years of professional experience as a clinician, administrator, policy analyst, and researcher. A central goal of her work has been to bring substance abuse identification and intervention skills into mainstream social work practice by teaching substance abuse courses for Master’s students and postgraduate and continuing education courses for experienced clinicians. She has also served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. She received her MSW from Syracuse University and her PhD from Brandeis University.
Sara S. Bachman
Associate Professor; Research Director, MSW/MTh Program
A faculty member since 1992, Dr. Bachman has more than fifteen years experience with health policy research. Her area of specialty is research methods and she has conducted numerous quantitative and qualitative research projects. Dr. Bachman has particular expertise in the area of managed care—especially for people with disabilities—Medicaid, and state health policy. She and colleagues from the Health and Disability Working Group at Boston University School of Public Health recently completed a project that focused on how substance abuse treatment services are provided to people with disabilities in Medicaid-managed care plans. Dr. Bachman also has conducted several projects with different agencies within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. She is consulting editor for Health and Social Work and is a regular reviewer for Medical Care. Dr. Bachman serves as co-director of the MSW/MPH Program and is a member of the Advisory Committee for the joint School of Social Work/Department of Sociology doctoral program. She received her PhD from Brandeis University’s Heller School for Social Policy and Management, where she was a Pew Health Policy Fellow.
Deanne Bonnar
Clinical Associate Professor, Social Welfare Policy; Director, MSW/MEd Program; Coordinator, Ethics Course
A member of the faculty since 1989, Dr. Bonnar teaches courses in social welfare policy, racism, and ethics. She directs the MSW/MEd Program and coordinates the ethics course. She came to Boston University from her position as director of the Massachusetts Office for Children for the Metropolitan Boston Region. Prior to earning her PhD from Brandeis University’s Heller School for Social Policy and Management, she was director of social work at Lawrence Memorial Hospital in Lawrence, Kansas. Dr. Bonnar has also worked with child welfare programs. Additionally, her interests include disability studies and antipoverty policies for women and children. Dr. Bonnar is also an independent consultant and sits on a number of community boards.
Dennie Butler-MacKay
Lecturer, Human Behavior in the Social Environment
Ms. Butler-MacKay joined the faculty in 1996 and, while also serving as a faculty advisor, has taught in three different areas of the curriculum: Macro Practice, Implications of Racism, and Human Behavior. She has particular interest in urban practice with youth and young adults, as well as in school social work and strengths-based practice. In accordance with these interests, Professor Butler-MacKay founded a nonprofit organization called Leaders of Tomorrow, Inc., which today features a school-based program that focuses on leadership development as a way to enhance academic achievement. She continues to serve as the organization’s president and CEO. Professor Butler-MacKay received her MSW from Boston University.
Cassandra M. Clay
Acting Chair and Clinical Professor, Clinical Social Work Practice
Cassandra Clay joined the faculty in 1986. Her research and teaching interests include cultural competence, substance abuse, child welfare, and program evaluation. She teaches both clinical practice courses and the Implications of Racism course. Recent projects include curriculum development and training of workers in public child welfare agencies in the area of multidisciplinary assessment and youth development. Much of Professor Clay’s current work is in the area of child welfare. She is co-investigator of a national multi-site evaluation of child welfare training grants. In addition, she is co-principal investigator of a DHHS-funded grant to support professional education for public child agency staff. Professor Clay has also been involved with evaluation of resident services in an urban housing development in Boston. As a NIDA Minority Research Fellow, she continues to expand her research interest in the area of substance abuse and is working on publications from a study that examined childhood stresses and resources among children of alcoholics. Professor Clay provides consultation to human service agencies developing strategic plans for cultural competence. She is co-developer/producer of a videotape series “Teaching Practice and Diversity: Content and Process in the Classroom and Field.” Professor Clay received her MEd from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and her MSW from Boston University.
Mary Collins
Associate Professor, Social Welfare Policy; Director, Interdisciplinary PhD Program
Dr. Collins joined the faculty in 1997. Her general research interests are in the substantive areas of child welfare, juvenile justice, and mental health, with a specific focus on programs, services, and policies addressing problems in these areas. Recent projects have focused on transition services for youth aging out of state service systems, and evaluation of programs in youth services, child welfare training, and psychiatric rehabilitation. Dr. Collins received both her master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration. Subsequently, she conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Michigan School of Social Work, where she also taught research and evaluation methods for macro practice.
Kate Cooney
Assistant Professor, Macro Social Work Practice
Dr. Cooney joined the faculty in 2003. Her research interests include: social enterprise, commercialization in the nonprofit sector, social purpose businesses as a tool for workforce development, structural barriers to moving out of poverty, survival strategies in the low wage labor market, and privatization of the safety net. Dr. Cooney received both her master’s and doctoral degrees in social welfare from University of California, Los Angeles, where she studied and taught with Zeke Hasenfeld. She currently is working on a study of nonprofit organizations utilizing business enterprise to provide workforce development and job creation for vulnerable populations. Her research in this area focuses on the structural architecture of hybrid social service organizations with particular attention to internal tensions across different organizational models and to client outcomes. Recent publications include “Mothers first, not work first: Listening to welfare clients in job training,” in Qualitative Social Work: Research and Practice, 2, 217–235 and “The institutional and technical structuring of nonprofit ventures: Case study of a U.S. hybrid organization caught between two fields,” in Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 17, 143–161.
Marah A. Curtis
Assistant Professor,Social Welfare Policy
Dr. Curtis received her PhD in Social Policy, Planning, and Policy Analysis at Columbia University School of Social Work and was both a Council on Social Work Education and Columbia University Public Policy Consortium Fellow. Dr. Curtis’s research focuses on the effects of public policy on the well being of children and families with particular emphasis on housing policy, welfare reform, and poverty. She received her MSW with honors from Hunter College School of Social Work and began her clinical work with children and families in both outpatient and residential treatment settings as well as post-masters clinical training in Family Therapy at the Ackerman Institute for the Family.
Melvin Delgado
Professor and Chair, Macro Social Work Practice
Dr. Delgado has been a member of the faculty since 1979. His professional career incorporates a wide range of interests and skills as a clinician, researcher, historian, and advocate. His writings cover a wide range of topics such as youth-led youth development, community capacity enhancement, substance abuse, correctional supervision, and communities of color with particular reference to Latino populations. He received his MS from Columbia University and his PhD from Brandeis University.
Ellen R. DeVoe
Assistant Professor, Clinical Social Work Practice
Dr. DeVoe joined the faculty in 2005. Her scholarship focuses on the impact of family and community violence on young children and families and the development and evaluation of intervention designed to mitigate these effects. Dr. DeVoe has a program of federally funded research including a study of the impact of September 11 on very young children and their families in New York City and an ongoing intervention project aimed at reducing the impact of multiple violence exposures on youth in urban settings. Her clinical interests include working with children and families affected by sexual abuse, domestic violence, and trauma. Dr. De Voe received her MSW from the University of Denver and her PhD from the University of Michigan.
Janice N. Furlong
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Human Behavior in the Social Environment
A faculty member since 1998, Professor Furlong has over twenty-six years of full-time clinical practice experience in outpatient community mental health, HMOs, hospitals, and residential treatment settings. She teaches Adult Psychopathology, Brief Treatment, Clinical Assessment and Intervention, and serves as a faculty advisor. Her clinical interests include collaborative therapy with multi-stressed families, narrative therapy, and the implications of resiliency research for treatment of youth and adults with PTSD, depression, anxiety, and chemical dependency. In addition to her half-time faculty position at BUSSW, she serves as Training Director at a family and youth services agency, where she developed and continues to direct a clinical training program for MSW and doctoral students. She has supervised staff clinicians and trainees for the past nineteen years and continues to carry an active client caseload. Professor Furlong teaches workshops on clinical supervision as part of the School’s post-master’s certificate program, and frequently offers clinical trainings in the community. She received her MSW from Simmons College School of Social Work.
Scott Miyake Geron
Associate Professor, Social Welfare Policy and Research; Director, Institute for Geriatric Social Work
Dr. Geron has been a member of the faculty since 1992. His research interests include geriatric social work effectiveness, home- and community-based care for the elderly and other high-risk and medically complex populations, program evaluation, and quality assessment. Dr. Geron has extensive experience in conducting applied policy research with the elderly, chronically mentally ill, and other long-term care populations, and in developing teaching and training materials for social workers, care managers, geriatricians, mental health professionals, and other health professionals who work with frail, chronically ill populations. A nationally known expert in the development of consumer-based measures of client satisfaction, his Home Care Satisfaction Measure is now widely in use by states and programs around the country, and has been adopted by the U.S. Administration on Aging as a key performance outcome measure. Dr. Geron is Principal Investigator for both the Institute for Geriatric Social Work and the Boston GEM Consortium, an innovative field practicum program for MSW students specializing in aging. Dr. Geron completed his MA and PhD at the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration.
Mark Gianino
Clinical Assistant Professor, Clinical Social Work Practice
Dr. Mark Gianino joined BUSSW in 2005 as a full-time member of the Clinical Practice faculty, where he teaches courses in groupwork, brief treatment, and social work practice with couples, and acts as faculty advisor to students in the field. Dr. Gianino has twenty-two years of social work practice experience, having begun his career in clinical practice with individuals with persistent mental health issues in day treatment and inpatient psychiatric settings. He served as chief clinical social worker for the Department of Psychiatry at Carney Hospital. He has many years of supervisory, clinical, and organizational experience in the area of trauma, with special emphasis on work with male survivors of sexual trauma. Dr. Gianino has conducted trainings and workshops regionally and nationally on trauma and issues of relevance to the GLBT community. As a member of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), Dr. Gianino was elected to the Nominating Committee (2002–2004), and has served as co-chair of GLBT and Ethics Education Committees. Dr. Gianino’s clinical and research interests involve numerous aspects of gay and lesbian family life, culturally competent practice, and groupwork. Prior to joining the faculty at BUSSW, Dr. Gianino taught research methods and clinical practice at Simmons College School of Social Work. Currently, Dr. Gianino also maintains a private practice in Brookline, Massachusetts, where he works with individuals, couples, and groups. Dr. Gianino received his MSW from Boston University and his PhD from Simmons College.
Judith G. Gonyea
Professor and Chair, Research
Dr. Gonyea joined the faculty in 1984, having taught previously at the University of Washington, where she earned her MSW and PhD. Her research expertise is in the areas of families, aging, gender, and social policy. She has written widely on these subjects and currently serves on the editorial boards of Research on Aging, The Journal of Gerontological Social Work and The Public Policy and Aging Report and Research on Aging. Dr. Gonyea is the American editor of Community, Work and Family. In 2004, she was elected chair of the Social Research, Policy and Practice Section of The Gerontological Society of America. In 2005, Dr. Gonyea was the recipient of the national Leadership Award from the Association for Gerontological Education in Social Work. Her recent articles include “Reducing poverty among older women: Social Security reform and gender equity” (Families in Society, 2005); “The economic well-being of older Americans and the persistent divide” (Public Policy & Aging Report, 2005); and “Project CARE: A randomized controlled trial of a behavioral intervention group for Alzheimer’s disease caregivers” (Gerontologist, 2006).
Hyeouk Chris Hahm
Assistant Professor, Clinical Social Work Practice and Research
Dr. Hyeouk Chris Hahm joined the faculty in 2005. Dr. Hahm attended Columbia University School of Social Work for her master’s and doctoral degrees. A former research fellow of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Council of Social Work Education (CSWE) Minority Fellowship Program, Dr. Hahm was awarded a NIMH post-doctoral fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley, Mental Health Services Research Group for two years. She was also awarded a Minority Dissertation grant from the NIMH Office of AIDS and a National Institute of Health (NIH) Loan Repayment Program Grant. Dr. Hahm has provided clinical services in a variety of settings, including inpatient psychiatric and outpatient mental health services, university health services, and in private practice as a psychiatric social worker. Dr. Hahm’s research interests include how acculturation affects substance abuse, HIV/AIDS risk behaviors, and health care utilization among minority adolescents and factors associated with self-assessed health and health care utilization patterns among people with mental illnesses.
Robert B. Hudson
Professor and Chair, Social Welfare Policy
Dr. Hudson specializes in the politics and policy of aging and has written widely on both subjects. He is editor-in-chief of The Public Policy and Aging Report and currently serves on the editorial boards of The Journal of Aging and Social Policy and Social Service Review. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Social Insurance, where he chairs the John Heinz Dissertation Award Committee. Dr. Hudson has served on the governing boards of the Gerontological Society of America and the American Society on Aging. His current research focuses on the economic and social risks facing contemporary American elders. In 1996, he was recipient of the Gerontological Society of America’s Donald P. Kent Award for “exemplifying the highest standards of professional leadership in gerontology through teaching, service, and interpretation of gerontology to the larger society.”
Luz M. López
Assistant Professor, Clinical Social Work Practice (Group Work)
Luz M. López joined the faculty in 2005. She brings nine years of experience in the fields of HIV/AIDS and substance abuse with diverse populations. Dr. López’s research focuses on the areas of trauma, addiction and co-occurring mental health disorders, HIV prevention for women, and Latino culture. She has served as program manager of two federal Substance Abuse Mental Health Service Administration (SAMHSA) and Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT) multi-site research programs for women with addiction, co-occurring disorders, and violence. She also participated as consultant and interviewer for a study on microbicide acceptability funded by the National Institute of Mental Health. Dr. López received her MPH and PhD degrees from Tulane University.
Lena Lundgren
Associate Professor, Social Welfare Policy
Dr. Lundgren joined the School of Social Work faculty in 1994 after a tenure as director of the Urban Summit Programs at the Center for the Study of Urban Inequality of the Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago. Dr. Lundgren is the director of the Center on Work and Family and in this capacity directs a number of federally and privately funded research grants in the area of work-family and health. In recent years her research has increasingly focused on substance abuse-employment and HIV. Dr. Lundgren also teaches program evaluation and consults to a number of community organizations on program evaluation methods.
Donna McLaughlin
Clinical Assistant Professor, Clinical Social Work Practice
Donna McLaughlin has taught as adjunct faculty since 2003 and was promoted to three-quarter time faculty in 2005. She coordinates the groupwork program, teaches in the clinical practice program, and is a faculty advisor to students in the field. Ms. McLaughlin maintains a clinical practice with individuals, couples, and groups. Her twenty-plus year professional career, beginning with community organizing and women’s shelter work, includes the start-up and ten-year direction of Just a Start House, a model residential program for teen mothers and their children who have experienced trauma and homelessness. She has many years of clinical and organizational experience in the area of family violence. Ms. McLaughlin brings a strong background in supervision, consultation, and training in both clinical practice and organizational issues. In addition, her interests include cultural competence and education, and working with the LGBT community. Prior to joining the faculty, she was a field instructor for many years to MSW students from various programs. Ms. McLaughlin received her MSW from Boston University School of Social Work.
Joseph R. Merighi
Associate Professor, Human Behavior in the Social Environment
Dr. Merighi joined the faculty in 2005, having taught previously at San José State University. His research examines the professional role and occupational well-being of social work practitioners in health care settings, the nature of practice expertise in medical and psychiatric social work, and the influence of social discrimination on mental health. Dr. Merighi’s current projects include a national survey of social work practitioners in Portugal and a pilot project that examines how psychological resilience moderates the relation between experiences of discrimination and depression in men who have sex with men. Dr. Merighi received his MSW and PhD from the University of California at Berkeley.
Jordana R. Muroff
Assistant Professor, Clinical Practice
Dr. Muroff joined the BUSSW faculty in 2006 after completing her post-doctoral studies at the Center for Decision and Behavioral Medicine at the University of Michigan and VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System. She received her joint PhD in Social Work and Psychology from the University of Michigan. Dr. Muroff participated in the NIMH Race and Mental Health pre-doctoral Training Program, focusing on reducing racial/ethnic and gender disparities in mental health diagnosis, assessment and interventions. Dr. Muroff, also has pre- and post-MSW specialized clinical training in cognitive behavioral therapy methods (CBT) with youth and adults through the Anxiety Disorders Program and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders Clinic, University of Michigan Health System. Prior to joining the BUSSW faculty, she taught courses and seminars on social work practice and cognitive behavioral methods at the University of Michigan. Dr. Muroff’s research and career interests are in culturally responsive and empirically supported intervention methods (such as CBT methods) for ethnically and socio-economically diverse populations with anxiety and depression, and the use of technology in assessment and interventions.
Ruth Paris
Assistant Professor, Clinical Social Work Practice; Director, Family Therapy Certificate Program
Dr. Paris joined the faculty in 2000, having previously taught at Smith College School for Social Work, San Francisco State University, and the University of California at Berkeley. Her twenty-three years of clinical practice experience includes work with varied populations in hospitals, community mental health centers, outpatient clinics, and private practice settings. Dr. Paris’ research interests include parenting over the life course, interventions with at-risk mothers and infants, women’s adult development and aging, and the intergenerational transmission of family violence. Her recent research projects have included studying a parent-infant psychotherapy intervention for mothers with post partum mood disorders, evaluating a home-based program for at-risk immigrant and refugee mothers and infants, examining the impact of personality and prior relationship in the care giving experience of adult daughters and their elderly mothers, and surveying interpersonal violence in women who are undergoing treatment for cancer. Dr. Paris received her MSW from Smith College School for Social Work and her PhD from the University of California at Berkeley.
Humberto Reynoso Vallejo
Assistant Professor, Human Behavior in the Social Environment and Social Welfare Policy; Coordinator, Racism Course
Dr. Reynoso-Vallejo joined the faculty in 2004. He has extensive experience working with diverse ethnic and racial groups in different geographical areas of Mexico, as well as in the Greater Boston Area. His major research interests include health services research, substance abuse, effects of social inequalities to racial/ethnic groups, medical anthropology, and health-related issues among diverse communities, particularly Latinos. His current research focuses on the role of social capital in substance abuse epidemiology and treatment. Dr. Reynoso-Vallejo received his MSW from Simmons College and his PhD in social policy from Brandeis University.
Betty J. Ruth
Clinical Associate Professor; Director, Professional Education Programs; Director, MSW/MPH Program; Director, Certificate Program in Clinical Social Work and Behavioral Medicine
Betty J. Ruth, a Clinical Associate Professor at Boston University School of Social Work and the Boston University School of Graduate Medical Sciences, directs the School’s Professional Education Program, the MSW/MPH program, and the Clinical Social Work and Behavioral Medicine Certificate Program. She holds an MSW and an MPH from Boston University, and has an extensive clinical and public health practice background in substance abuse treatment and prevention, cardiovascular risk reduction, HIV/AIDS prevention, children and family services, gerontology, and infant mortality reduction. Her current areas of research center on public health social work, particularly dual professionalism issues, trans-disciplinary collaboration, and the bundling of prevention with intervention services in health, mental health, and social work. In May 2006, Professor Ruth chaired a national conference, Public Health Social Work in the 21st Century, held at Boston University. She recently received a grant from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health to assess training and knowledge of suicide prevention at BUSSW. She is also establishing a training institute for public health social work, in conjunction with the School’s Public Education Programs. Professor Ruth teaches Ethics and the Social Work Profession at BUSSW and Social and Cultural Foundations of Practice at the Graduate School of Medical Sciences.
Linda Yael Schiller
Clinical Assistant Professor, Clinical Social Work Practice
Linda Yael Schiller has taught as adjunct faculty since 1992, and was promoted to half-time in 2005. She teaches both the advanced and the required group work courses, and has also taught in the clinical practice sequence. Linda is on the faculty of the Trauma Certificate program through BUSSW Continuing Education, and frequently offers continuing education courses on trauma, dream work, energy medicine and behavioral health, integrating spirituality and clinical practice, and group treatment. She is the author of original theory on stages of development in women’s groups, which was recently expanded to include protocol for use with all vulnerable populations. She has represented BUSSW at the International Association for the Advancement of Social Work with Groups conference since 1995, and has been a frequent presenter for NASW, AASWG, and many local agencies and hospital grand rounds. Her private clinical practice includes supervision, consultation, and training, and she is a certified EMDR practitioner, with years of experience in the treatment of trauma and dissociative disorders. Ms. Schiller received her MSW from Boston University.
Sunny Hyucksun Shin
Assistant Professor, Human Behavior in the Social Environment
Dr. Shin joined the faculty in 2002, having previously taught at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign School of Social Work. His primary research areas are mental health services research, racial/ethnic disparities in mental health services use, child maltreatment, substance abuse, and educational outcomes of maltreated children. In recent years, Dr. Shin has studied the effects of caregiver’s support networks and caregivers’ mental health services use on their children’s utilization of mental health services. His recent projects have also focused on examining racial and ethnic variations in social networks among caregivers involved with child welfare. Dr. Shin currently is examining the effect of multiple types of maltreatment on youth alcohol problems. He has practice experience in child welfare and school social work. Dr. Shin received his MSSW degree from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and his PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he taught research methods and practice evaluation courses.
Renée Spencer
Assistant Professor, Human Behavior in the Social Environment
Dr. Spencer joined the faculty in 2002, after receiving her doctorate in human development from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, where she also taught. Her research focuses on adolescent development and how relational theories inform the study of risk and resilience. She is particularly interested in the role that strong relationships with adults play in adolescent psychological health and well-being, and recently completed a qualitative interview study with urban adolescents and their adult mentors. Dr. Spencer received her MSSW from the University of Texas at Austin and was engaged in clinical practice for several years before pursuing doctoral study. As a clinical social worker, she developed and implemented psychiatric hospital programs for women based on feminist relational theories of psychological development.
Lee H. Staples
Clinical Professor, Macro Social Work Practice
Dr. Staples has been a member of the faculty since 1980. His professional career includes extensive experience as a community organizer, supervisor, staff director, trainer, consultant, coach, and educator. Dr. Staples practices and publishes in the areas of grassroots community organizing, consumer/community empowerment, task-oriented group work, international development, and immigrant rights. Over the past several years, his research has focused on NGO development in the Balkans, consumer empowerment in Israel, grassroots leadership, social action groups, and youth organizing. He recently published the second edition of Roots to Power: A Manual for Grassroots Organizing, which is used widely by practitioners and as a text in many schools of social work and Youth-Led Community Organizing: Theory and Action, co-authored with Professor Melvin Delgado. Currently, he is involved in a range of community organizing efforts locally, nationally, and internationally. Professor Staples received his MSW at the University of California, Los Angeles, and his PhD in social work and sociology from Boston University.
Julie Sweeney-Springwater
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Macro Practice Director, Human Service Management Certificate Program
Julie Sweeney-Springwater joined the faculty in 1996. She brings thirty years of experience in the fields of child welfare, staff development, board development, and public, non-profit, and association management to her position. Ms. Springwater has served as the Executive Director of the New England Association of Child Welfare Commissioners and Directors for the past twelve years. Currently, she serves as the Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the Child Welfare League of America. Ms Springwater received her MSW and Human Service Management Certificate from Boston University.
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One Sherborn Street
Boston, MA 02215
18 September 2007
Boston University
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