Social Welfare Analysis Colloquium
Speaker Bios - FALL 2007
Matthew Marr
Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University
Dr. Matthew Marr is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard University. Dr. Marr received his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles, in June 2007, his M.A. in Sociology with a focus on Urban Sociology from Howard University in May 1997, and his B.A. in Government and Japanese, with a minor in East Asian Studies from the University of Notre Dame in 1993. He has done extensive work with agencies aiding the homeless in several cities in the U.S. and Japan. Dr. Marr's dissertation examines the persistence of mass urban homelessness in leading cities of the global economy, he lays out the experiences and outcomes of the efforts to exit homelessness by people in Tokyo and Los Angeles. He examines how forces, from the global to the individual, impact homelessness. While researching at the Reischauer Institute, he will build upon this current framework to further explore factors and processes effecting homelessness in Tokyo and Los Angeles at the social, individual, and local policy levels.
Margaret Boyd
Assistant Professor of Sociology, Stonehill College
Dr. Boyd is an Assistant Professor at Stonehill College in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice. She received her Ph.D. in the joint Sociology and Social Work program at Boston University in 2007. Currently, Professor Boyd is working as a consultant and research coordinator on a large three year grant with the U.S. Department of Education evaluating professional development training of early childhood educators and outcomes for children, in Providence, RI. Her research interests include race and ethnic studies, urban neighborhoods, immigrant studies, early childhood education and mental health policy and programs.
Michael Connell
Principal, Institute for Knowledge Design, LLC
Michael W. Connell, Ed.D., holds a Master's degree in Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Doctorate in Education from Harvard University. He has been an Instructor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Educational Neuroscience program at Dartmouth College. In his research and consulting, Dr. Connell focuses primarily on methods for translating insights from brain and cognitive science into useable knowledge for educators while preserving scientific validity. He has applied insights from his theoretical research to develop applications in a variety of domains, including adult learning, intelligence analysis, the psychology of storytelling, museum exhibit design, and intelligent tutoring systems for K-12 classrooms. Representative publications include “On Abilities & Domains” (in The Psychology of Abilities, Competencies & Expertise, co-authored with Kim Sheridan and Howard Gardner); “Individual Cognitive Factors” (in A Handbook of the Psychology of Analysis: for Intelligence Analysis, Managers, and Teachers, in press); and "Two Motivational Systems that Shape Development" (with Kurt Fischer, 2003).
Hyeouk Hahm
Assistant Professor of Social Work, Boston University
Dr. Hahm is an Assistant Professor at Boston University School of Social Work. She received her PhD in Social Work from Columbia University and completed her post-doctoral fellowship at University of California, Berkeley, School of Social Welfare. Her fields of special interest include HIV/STDs risk factors, substance use/abuse, acculturation, health disparities, health care utilization patterns among ethnic minority adolescents and young adults. Representative publications include “Asian American Pacific Islanders (AAPI) Sexual Minority Adolescents’ Longitudinal Patterns of Substance use and abuse: Findings from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Journal of Adolescent Health (in press),” “Longitudinal Effects of Perceptions of Maternal Approval on Sexual Risk Behaviors of Asian and Pacific Islander (API) Adolescents Transitioning to Young Adulthood." Journal of Youth and Adolescence (in press), Predictors of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) among Asian and Pacific Islander Young Adults. Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health (2007), 39, 4, Health care disparities and language use at home among Latino, Asian American, and American Indian adolescents: Findings from the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS). Journal of Community Psychology, (in press). Asian American adolescents’ first sexual intercourse: Gender and acculturation difference. Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health (2006), 38, 1, 28-36.
Qingwen Xu
Assistant Professor of Social Work, Boston College
Dr. Xu is an Assistant Professor at Boston College Graduate School of Social Work. She received her PhD in Social Work from the University of Denver and law degrees from New York University and Peking University. Her research interests include comparative social welfare policy, law and social work, and immigrant and refugee issues.
Mary-Ellen Boyle
Associate Professor of Management, Clark University
Dr. Boyle is an Associate Professor at the Clark University's Graduate School of Management. She received her MBA and PhD degrees from Boston College, and her BA from Yale University. Her current research investigates best practices in business assistance for minority and immigrant entrepreneurs, university-community partnerships, private sector approaches to poverty, and the citizenship responsibilities of business schools. Professor Boyle is author of The New Schoolhouse: Literacy, Managers, and Belief (Praeger 2001), an analysis of workplace literacy programs. She has contributed case studies, industry analyses, and instructional materials to a number of volumes, including the handbook Organizing for Economic Development. She has also published articles and reports on the topics of managing ethics across cultures, corporate community relations, corporate change and the arts, the social responsibility of business schools, organizational aesthetics, workforce development, social health indicators, and immigrant education policy.
Scott Miyake Geron
Associate Professor of Social Welfare Policy, Boston University
Dr. Geron is Associate Professor of Social Welfare Policy and Research at the Boston University School of Social Work. Professor Geron is Director and Principal Investigator of the Institute for Geriatric Social Work, a national center dedicated to strengthening the workforce for an aging society through educational innovation, workforce redesign, and research. Dr. Geron’s research interests include geriatric social work effectiveness, long-term care policy and financing, home care, program assessment and evaluation, care management and managed care for the elderly and other high-risk and medically complex populations, program evaluation and quality assessment.
Sigrun Olafsdottir
Assistant Professor of Sociology, Boston University
Dr. Olafsdottir is an Assistant Professor in Sociology at Boston University. She received her Ph.D. in sociology from Indiana University in 2007. Her research interests include medical sociology, sociology of mental health, comparative research, political sociology, sociology of culture, gender, and research methods. Professor Olafsdottir work seeks to understand how institutional arrangements influence individual level outcomes. Frequently, but not exclusively, the focus is on health, illness, and healing. Her dissertation, Medicalizing Mental Health: A Comparative View of the Public, Private, and Professional Construction of Mental Illness explores how medicalization, as a social process, is constructed and addressed within and across nations. Her other work focuses on how culture and politics impact issues of health, illness, and healing.Nicole Dubus
Special Session: Practice Job Talk
Dr. Dubus received her Ph.D. in Sociology and Social Work from the Boston University in May 2007 and is currently on the job market. She presents findings from her dissertation research examining the experiences of paraprofessional providers and recipients of a social support program for postpartum women at-risk for mood disorders. As working women transition into the new role of mother, many face a disconnect between what they expected mothering an infant would be like, and what they experienced postpartum. The findings from this study suggest that a specific intervention may be helpful in aiding new mothers in this transitional period. Nicole is a licensed clinical social worker with over 20 years of clinical experience, and is currently developing a study examining the experiences of elder Cambodian immigrants who survived the torture camps of the Khmer Rouge.
