Dr. Jennifer M. Gómez Wins 2025 BUSSW Excellence in Teaching Award
Boston University School of Social Work (BUSSW) is proud to announce Dr. Jennifer M. Gómez is the recipient of the 2025 Excellence in Teaching Award. This annual honor celebrates faculty and staff who demonstrate outstanding contributions to teaching, mentorship, scholarship, and advancement of the school’s mission.
The Excellence in Teaching award recipient is nominated by graduating BUSSW students. Nominees are required to have taught at least ten courses over the past five years.
Dr. Gómez will be formally recognized during the 2025 BUSSW Commencement Ceremony for its MSW and PhD graduates, May 15th, where the award presenter will share accolades from her students about how her teaching and the “safe space” of her classroom influenced their lives, education, and career trajectory.
An assistant professor and faculty affiliate at the Center for Innovation in Social Work & Health at BUSSW, Dr. Gómez is a Black feminist trauma researcher and critical race scholar whose work focuses on the impacts of systemic oppression on outcomes of violence in marginalized communities. She developed cultural betrayal trauma theory and is the author of The Cultural Betrayal of Black Women & Girls: A Black Feminist Approach to Healing from Sexual Abuse, which received the 2024 Frank W. Putnam Outstanding Book Award from the International Society for the Study of Trauma & Dissociation (ISSTD).
The 2025 BUSSW Commencement Ceremony will also highlight the achievements and voices of the broader BUSSW community, including twelve student award winners and guest speaker Ricardo Neal (MSW’99), president and CEO of We Will All Rise.