PROFESSOR AND CHAIR
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES

Email: abrams@luskin.ucla.edu
Website: https://luskin.ucla.edu/person/laura-abrams 

Professor Abrams’ scholarship focuses on improving the well being of youth and young adults with histories of incarceration. Her ethnographic studies have examined youths’ experiences of criminality, risk, and institutions seeking to reshape their identities through both therapeutic and punitive practices. These themes are presented in her 2013 book (co-authored with Ben Anderson-Nathe) Compassionate Confinement: A Year in the Life of Unit C, (Rutgers University Press). Her most recent book (co-authored with Diane Terry), Everyday Desistance: The Transition to Adulthood Among Formerly Incarcerated Youth (Rutgers University Press, 2017), examines how formerly incarcerated young men and women navigate reentry and the transition to adulthood in the context of urban Los Angeles. Dr. Abrams is also the lead editor of a 2016 multidisciplinary volume on the role of volunteers and non-profits in changing lives and promoting more humane conditions in prisons and jails: The Voluntary Sector in Prisons: Encouraging Personal and Institutional Change (Palgrave, 2016).

CONSULTANT AND TRAINER

Email: info@katebarrow.com

Website: https://www.katebarrow.com  and www.trainingforjustice.com 

Kate Barrow, LCSW, specializes in trauma-informed and anti-oppressive approaches to social services, management, and systems change work. She has expertise in criminal justice, mental health, trauma, racial justice, and youth development. She currently works as a nonprofit management trainer, organizational consultant, clinical supervisor, and management coach, with an emphasis on criminal justice settings.

A nonprofit manager for 15 years, Kate spent nearly a decade working in the criminal justice system. From 2015-2018 she directed a professional development institute for an interdisciplinary criminal justice agency in New York City. In this role she led the professional development initiatives for a staff of over 500, and directed 150 hours of trainings annually. Previously, she directed clinical programs in court-based, social service, and foster care settings, with a focus on systems-involved youth. She has been an adjunct professor at New York University, and John Jay College through the Prisoner Reentry Institute. Kate was previously named an emerging social work leader by the National Association of Social Workers New York City Chapter for her work incorporating social justice values into clinical work.

Kate completed her BA at Naropa University in Contemplative Psychology, her MSW at the Silver School of Social Work at NYU, and an advanced certificate in clinical supervision through Smith College. She is a licensed clinical social worker in the state of New York.

PROFESSOR, ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR DOCTORAL EDUCATION, DENVER UNIVERSITY

Email: kimberly.bender@du.edu

Website: https://socialwork.du.edu/about/gssw-directory/kimberly-ann-bender 

Professor Kimberly Bender serves as Associate Dean for Doctoral Education. Her recent research includes a study of gender-specific pathways from childhood maltreatment to juvenile delinquency among youth in the child welfare system. Bender’s research aims to improve services and develop empirically based interventions for adolescents at risk of problem behavior. She recently contributed to an intervention research project on methods for engaging runaway youth in substance-use treatment funded by the National Institute for Drug Abuse.

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT WILMINGTON

Email: boltonk@uncw.edu

Website: https://uncw.edu/chhs/swk/about/bio/kristinbolton.html

Bio: Dr. Kristin W. Bolton is an Associate Professor and MSW Program Coordinator in the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Her research interests include: youth violence prevention, re-entry services, healthy psychological development, and the evidence base of solution focused brief therapy with violent and non-violent offenders.

DOCTORAL CANDIDATE, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY

Email: britabookser@berkeley.edu

Website: https://socialwelfare.berkeley.edu/people/phd-students

Brita A. Bookser’s research interests include early care and education, education policy, carceral logics in education, feminist anti-carceral studies, womanism, and critical race theory. Her research-praxis agenda is facilitated by varied agency partnerships that explore policies and pedagogies for inclusion and civic engagement. Bookser’s qualitatively-driven mixed-method dissertation explores a typology of exclusionary discipline measures in preschools and examines how structural factors influence exclusionary tactics in early care and education settings.

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR AND ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR DOCTORAL AND POST-DOCTORAL EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND 

Email: cbright@ssw.umaryland.edu

My research focuses on populations and services within the child welfare and juvenile justice systems, with specific interests in gender, trauma, and implementation of best practices.

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF UTAH

Email: rob.butters@socwk.utah.edu

Website: https://faculty.utah.edu/u0050005-ROB_BUTTERS/teaching/index.hml

J. FRANKLIN BAYHI ENDOWED PROFESSOR, LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY

Email: wesleyc@lsu.edu

Websit: https://www.lsu.edu/chse/socialwork/faculty-staff/church.php

My research agenda has been concentrated in two areas. First, I have been examining issues facing children and adolescents and their families. I am interested in the impact of race, socio-economic status, gender, education, crime, and family on the involvement of children and their families as they navigate their way through major systems (i.e. welfare, justice, and healthcare). Second, I have been exploring personal perceptions and attitudes towards offenders, focusing on sexual offenders and mentally ill offenders. I use an interdisciplinary approach in my research and utilize resources derived from criminal justice, psychology, history, minority studies, social work, gerontology, and rural studies.

GRADUATE STUDENT, UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT

Email: Dominique.Courts@uconn.edu

Website: https://ssw.uconn.edu/person/c-l-dominique-courts-ma-mft/#

After graduating from NYU with a bachelor’s degree in Applied Psychology with a concentration in Social and Cultural Analysis, Dominique Courts, MA, MFT, earned a clinical master’s degree in Human Development and Family Studies with a specialization in Marriage and Family Therapy at UCONN. Following her work as a therapist, Dominique is now a Crandall-Cordero fellow at The UCONN School of Social Work and invested in affecting change on an institutional and systems level.

As a doctoral student, she is particularly interested in using a reproductive and healing justice framework to understand the healing process for people, who live with intersecting marginalized identities, especially lesbian, gay, transgender, bisexual and queer individuals of color. The lack of visibility and research around LGBTQ people of color led her to be passionate about conducting mixed-methods and participatory action research to explore various aspects of their lived experiences. Ultimately, Dominique desires to amplify the voices of marginalized populations in her research and use collaborative and empowering research methods and accessible dissemination techniques.

Throughout the CT community, Dominique also facilitates workshops and groups focused on relationships, LGBTQ identities and other topics related to social justice and healing. She centers the lived experiences and needs of the individuals at the intersections of race, sexuality, gender and ability in her research, teaching, clinical and community work and advocacy.

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, FRESNO STATE UNIVERSITY

Email: marcuscrawford@csufresno.edu

Child welfare, juvenile justice, criminal justice reform.

POST-DOCTORAL SCHOLAR, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY

Email: aditidas@berkeley.edu

Website: https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=AAIAABHAIC8BhhPRzH-lrUjuvQVFokkYPIA1Dkw&trk=nav_responsive_tab_profile_pic

Aditi Das is a former Postdoctoral Scholar at the Mack Center on Nonprofit and Public Sector Management in the Human Services at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Das’s research focuses on strengthening upstream human service delivery for vulnerable children, youth and families while assessing sustainability of reform efforts within complex human service organizations. In close partnership with California Bay Area counties, Aditi lead three projects focused on 1) understanding client and frontline worker perspectives on recent TANF policy reforms, 2) showcasing innovative county practices within child welfare and welfare-to-work services, and 3) building a compendium of age-friendly initiatives for adult and aging services.  Her dissertation supported by a competitive grant from the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture at the University of Chicago, focuses on the implementation of restorative justice reform within an urban public-school district to address the school-to-prion pipeline. Her work has been published at premier social work journals such as Contemporary Justice Review, Youth and Society and has presented her work at various national conferences including the Society for Social Work and Research, Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management and Network for Social Work Management. Dr. Das completed her PhD from the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration and her MSW from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India.

ASSISTANT DEAN FOR RESEARCH, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA

Email: dana.dehart@sc.edu

Website: http://cosw.sc.edu/faculty/dana-dehart

Dr. DeHart’s specialty area is violence and victimization. She has been Principal Investigator on many grants and contracts addressing issues such as victimization and survivor services, impact of incarceration on families, gendered pathways to adult and juvenile offending, mental health and substance abuse, and predatory sexual behavior. Dr. DeHart has expertise in a range of qualitative and quantitative methods and has conducted hundreds of interviews with adult and juvenile offenders, crime victims, justice professionals, and human-service providers. Dr. DeHart is experienced in needs assessment, program evaluation, scale design, and ethical research design.

INSTRUCTOR OF CHILD ADVOCACY STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA UPSTATE

Website: https://sam.research.sc.edu/uscera/facultyExpertise/cv/35304#bio

VISITING ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, COLLEGE OF SAINT ROSE

Email: espinozl@strose.edu

Liz Espinoza has forensic social work experience at state government level in NY.

PROFESSOR AND ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR RESEARCH, UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT

Email: michael.fendrich@uconn.edu

Website: https://ssw.uconn.edu/person/michael-fendrich-phd/

 I conduct research on interventions for mental health and substance use in vulnerable and high risk populations.  My work has examined the impact of drug treatment courts in addressing the needs of heroin involved participants and emerging adults.  My work has also examined the role of alternative criminal justice interventions specifically focused on juveniles in the criminal justice system.  Most recently, I am developing mindful interventions for opioid involved adults reentering the community from the criminal justice system.

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, CRIMINAL JUSTICE STUDIES, SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY

Email: cgallo@sfsu.edu

Bio: My scholarship addresses historical and international trends in crime and welfare policies, with particular attention to how policies and laws intending to support underrepresented and marginalized groups have developed over the last century. I am especially interested in the “criminalization” of poverty and the penalization of vulnerable populations. One of my recent research projects examines how categories in crime policy, such as the “crime victim,” have crossed over to welfare law and policy. The study shows how new categories can change the way policy makers and practitioners conceptualize social problems, in particular, poverty and inequality.​ I’m currently working on a book exploring the roots of the Swedish victim movement. This book is vital to informing the literature how different societies have approached issues related to crime and victims.

I am also a trained social worker. Before entering academia, I worked with many different actors involved in the criminal justice system. For instance, between 2001 and 2006 I was the director of a nongovernmental victim support center, which provides services to over 500 crime victims per year.

CLINICAL ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY, DIRECTOR OF MA PROGRAM IN APPLIED QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY

Email: amanda.geller@nya.edu

Website: https://as.nyu.edu/content/nyu-as/as/faculty/amanda-beth-geller.html

The focus of my research is twofold: examining the causes and effects of incarceration for men and their families, and examining racial disparities in the administration of justice.

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, FORDHAM UNIVERSITY

Email: goldkind@fordham.edu

Website: https://www.fordham.edu/info/24281/gss_full-time_faculty_profiles/11298/lauri_goldkind

Dr. Goldkind has a longstanding interest and practice background in nonprofit leadership, capacity building and organizational development. Her practice experience has been centered in the youth development, education and juvenile justice realms. Prior to joining the faculty at Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service, she served as the Director of the Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services’ (CASES) School Connection Center, a public school admissions office for youth exiting the justice system. She was instrumental in developing the Center’s operational infrastructure, including creating and maintaining all data systems and documenting the Center’s progress. She also helped craft policy and develop data management applications at Community Prep High School, a school for young people transitioning back to their communities from the juvenile justice system. Before that she held program planning and fund raising positions at agencies serving young people in New York City, including the Posse Foundation, where she was the first director of development.

​Dr. Goldkind’s current research work centers on the intersection of the juvenile justice and public education system’s impact on urban youth. She is presently conducting a national study of school social workers exploring their role in the school re-entry process of juvenile justice youth. Dr. Goldkind is also interested in domestic trafficking issues and is partnering with the Girls Education Mentoring Services (GEMS) to document their programmatic model and highlight the complex and unexplored issues of girls who are commercially sexually exploited.

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, SOONGSIL UNIVERSITY

Email: whan@ssu.ac.kr

Woojae Han is an assistant professor of School of Social Work at Soongsil University in Korea. His research focuses on alternative court system, community rehabilitation for offenders with mental illness, and behavioral health disparities for populations at risk.

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, STONYBROOK UNIVERSITY

Email: Anna.hayward@stonybrook.edu

Website: https://socialwelfare.stonybrookmedicine.edu/faculty-staff/hayward

PROFESSOR OF SOCIAL WORK, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

Email: ami2@columbia.edu

Website: https://socialwork.columbia.edu/faculty-research/faculty/full-time/andre-ivanoff/

Dr. André Ivanoff has over 25 years of clinical and research experience in mental health, criminal justice and forensic settings. These include Seattle Emergency Housing Service, the Outpatient Psychiatry Clinic of the University of Washington Medical Center, the New York City Police Department and over two dozen adult and juvenile forensic/correctional settings in the United States and internationally. She presents widely at conferences, the most recent include Public Responsibility in Research & Medicine, the Association for Cognitive and Behavior Therapies, and the CMHS National GAINS Center conference.

RALPH AND MURIEL PUMPHREY PROFESSOR OF SOCIAL WORK RESEARCH, WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS

Email: jonsonrd@wustl.edu

Website: https://brownschool.wustl.edu/Faculty-and-Research/Pages/Melissa-Jonson-Reid.aspx