Assoc. Prof. Jennifer M. Gómez Receives Trauma Researcher Award
Assoc. Prof. Jennifer M. Gómez, top Google scholar of 2024, recently received the 2025 Linda Saltzman Memorial Intimate Partner Violence Researcher Award from the Institute on Violence, Abuse and Trauma. The award, given in memory of Linda Saltzman who dedicated her life to ending intimate partner violence through research, encourages continued research in this field by recognizing either new or established researchers who have made substantial contributions to the field of intimate partner violence and/or sexual violence in the past five years.
The award was presented at the 30th San Diego International Summit on Violence, Abuse and Trauma Across the Lifespan where Dr. Gómez also shared her expertise in a roundtable plenary, keynote panel, and breakout session:
- Roundtable Plenary Panelist: “What is Institutional Courage and Why Is It Important Today?”
- In a time when systemic failures and abuses of power continue to emerge across government, education, faith-based institutions, law enforcement, and beyond, the concept of institutional courage offers a vital framework for justice, accountability, and healing. The timely and thought-provoking panel explored what it means to confront institutional abuse with integrity, even when doing so carries personal and professional risk. Panelists examined why individuals often remain silent in the face of harm, the high personal and collective costs of speaking out, and the complex dynamics that perpetuate complicity.
-
Keynote Panelist: “Sexual Harassment Prevention in Higher Education: From Legality to Dreamstorming”
-
This talk reframed the current U.S. political landscape as an opportunity to clean and clarify the rationale, programming, and policies of sexual harassment prevention in higher education.
-
-
Breakout Session: “From Clinical Complexity to Institutional Courage: Intersectionality, Cultural Betrayal Sexual Trauma, & Dreamstorming Freedom in Therapy”
-
In this talk, Dr. Gómez used research to discuss strategies for engaging in clinically-relevant change at both individual and systems levels.
-
Brief & Brilliant at SSWR Annual Conference
- Check out Dr. Gómez in a Ted Talk-style video, Cultural Betrayal, Sexual Abuse, and Black Women & Girls: Dreamstorming a Free World, featured at this year’s Society for Social Work Research (SSWR) conference. The Brief & Brilliant sessions highlight how this important social work research is relevant to a broad public audience.