Quarterly faculty research and service news: April 2025
The VCU School of Social Work is proud to recognize the following accomplishments from our faculty through April 2025.
Research Awards & Proposals
Daniel Baslock, Ph.D., assistant professor, has submitted two grant applications:
- An R03 to the National Institute of Mental Health to use electronic health records to study the impact of a behavioral health payment reform on treatment outcomes in rural community mental health programs.
- A pilot to CHERISH to use Medicaid and commercial insurance claims data to study the impact of a pay-for-coordination financing measure on access to mental health care for individuals receiving office-based opioid treatment from their primary care physicians.
Nicole Corley, Ph.D., associate professor, received a VCU Global Learning Program Development Award to support a virtual exchange program this spring between the School of Social Work and the University of Ghana Department of Social Work.
Hyojin Im, Ph.D., associate professor, will be serving as a consultant on a newly funded project supported by the Wisconsin Partnership Program through the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This three-year initiative will address critical mental health needs among Latinx, Afghan, Central African and Arabic-speaking immigrant and refugee populations.
VCU’s Global Education Office has awarded Miriam Kuttikat, Ph.D., associate professor, a grant to participate in the University of Oxford’s Harris Manchester College Summer Research Institute in London. Dr. Kuttikat’s study is “The Kerala Diaspora Study: A five-site examination of health & wellbeing, food & nutrition, social network, and lifestyle trends of Malayalis in Kerala, USA, UK, Australia and Canada.”
Publications
Daniel Baslock, Ph.D., assistant professor, has had a paper published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence. Dr. Baslock and colleagues also have had a paper published in the Journal of Public Mental Health.
Spit for Science was featured in the December issue of Richmond Magazine, with quotes from Karen Chartier, Ph.D., associate professor and director of the Institute for Research on Behavioral and Emotional Health; Ananda Amstadter, Ph.D., of the School of Medicine; and Jhanay Davis, an alumna of VCU and IRBEH’s undergraduate addiction fellowship program.
Kimberly Compton, Ph.D., assistant professor, is a contributing author for “Ecosocial Work: Environmental Practice and Advocacy,” which the Society for Social Work and Research has selected for the 2025 Book Award Honorable Mention.
Mer Francis, Ph.D., assistant professor, and colleagues have had a paper published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence Reports.
Miriam Kuttikat, Ph.D., associate professor; doctoral student Marianne Lund, M.S.W., M.Ed.; and colleagues have had a paper published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.
Ieesha Ramsey, Ph.D., director of the Office of Student Success, has had a paper published in the journal Dialogues in Social Justice.
Naomi Reddish, M.S.W., administrator of community engaged child and family well-being initiatives, and colleagues (including alum Camie Tomlinson, Ph.D.’23) have had a paper published in the journal Health & Social Work.
Presentations
Daniel Baslock, Ph.D., assistant professor, presented at the American Public Health Association Annual Meeting in Minneapolis in October 2024.
Stevara Haley Clark, Ed.D., interim associate dean for academic and student affairs and director of online education, presented “Beyond the Brand: Ethical Marketing in Social Work’s Online Expansion” at the Social Work Distance Education Conference in April.
Mer Francis, Ph.D., assistant professor, is presenting “Recovery Identity Development in Action: An Exploration of How Collegiate Recovery Programs Cultivate Growth and Drive Resilience to the Impacts of Trauma” at the Association of Recovery in Higher Education Annual Meeting in New Orleans, June 25-29; doctoral student Ya-Li Yang, M.S.W., and Spit for Science undergraduate student Kyle Hull will be joining Dr. Francis.
Stephanie Odera, Ed.D., B.S.W. Program director and associate professor in teaching, was part of three presentations at the Association of Baccalaureate Social Work Program Directors in Las Vegas in March. B.S.W. students also attended and presented. Dr. Odera’s presentation topics:
- “BSW Curriculum Renewal: Implementing Programmatic Shared Language to Further Center ADEI Across the Curriculum “
- “Global Social Work Perspectives: Human Rights & Social Justice in Kerala, India”
- “Navigating BSW Education in a Time of Crisis: Teaching and Learning in a Politically and Philosophically Divided Nation”
Rebecca Smith, Ph.D., research instructor; Mer Francis, Ph.D., assistant professor; Ya-Li Yang, M.S.W., doctoral student; Rose Miola, M.S.W., doctoral student; and Tom Bannard, M.B.A., of Rams in Recovery presented on “Recovery outcomes as a function of harm reduction pathways in collegiate recovery participants” at the Collaborative Perspectives on Addiction in Providence, Rhode Island, in April. Their poster used data from the National Collegiate Recovery Study.
Affiliations & Service
Daniel Baslock, Ph.D., assistant professor, has become an affiliate investigator at the Center for Drug Use and HIV Research at New York University.
Adrienne Baldwin-White, Ph.D., assistant professor, has been elected a director at-large to the Society for Social Work and Research Board of Directors.
Kimberly Compton, Ph.D., assistant professor, and Alex Wagaman, Ph.D., associate professor, have created a Macro Discovery Series that engages current and prospective students, alumni, our community of practitioners and scholars in the field of macro social work.
Amanda Long, M.S.W., coordinator of community engaged child and family well-being initiatives, participated in Intergenerational Advocacy Day in January with Child Welfare Stipend Program students. Voices for Virginia’s Children hosted the event.
Stephanie Odera, Ed.D., B.S.W. Program director and associate professor in teaching, has been elected president of the Virginia Social Work Educators Consortium, 2025-2027. VSWEC is comprised of all 13 schools of social work in Virginia.
Honors
Dannita Trice, M.Ed., alumni engagement officer, received the 2024 Newcomer Award during the VCU Development & Alumni Relations Recognition Awards ceremony in January.
Categories Awards and honors, Education, Faculty and staff, Publications, Research