Dr. Roberta Rehner Iversen is the 2009 recipient of the Excellence in Teaching Award in the MSW Program, Standing Faculty, in the School of Social Policy & Practice (SP2). She is an associate professor of social work and is the interim faculty director of the Master of Science in Social Policy (MSSP) program. Dr. Iversen earned her bachelor of arts in English literature at the University of Michigan, and her master of social service and doctor of philosophy degrees at Bryn Mawr College. She is the author of Jobs Aren’t Enough: Toward a New Economic Mobility for Low-Income Families (co-author A.L. Armstrong), 2006, Temple University Press, an earlier monograph for the Annie E. Casey Foundation entitled Moving Up is a Steep Climb, and numerous publications on issues related to how low-income families interface with welfare and workforce development policies and the labor market. For the past few years, Dr. Iversen has been teaching the history and philosophy of social work and social welfare and a course on poverty, welfare and work that engages students in critical analysis of the seminal literature in these areas and incorporates real-life stories from her ethnographic research. She also teaches a social theory course in the doctoral program.

Dr. David B. Wohlsifer is the recipient of the Excellence in Teaching Award in the MSW Program, Part-time Faculty, in the School of Social Policy & Practice (SP2). He teaches the cognitive behavioral Treatment course as well as heterosexism at SP2. He has also served as a field liaison and in the past supervised a number of SP2 students at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Cognitive Therapy.  He also teaches family systems therapy in the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, department of psychiatry residency program. Dr. Wohlsifer received his MSW from the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work in 1994, his master of healthcare administration from St. Joseph’s University in 2000, and his PhD in 2006 in human sexuality from the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality, San Francisco, CA. He also completed postgraduate fellowship in cognitive therapy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Cognitive Therapy.

In addition to teaching at SP2, Dr. Wohlsifer is a partner with Bala Psychological Resources in Bala Cynwyd, PA.  In his practice he specializes in the treatment of sexual trauma, sexual dysfunctions, couples issues, substance abuse, sex/internet addictions, LGBT issues, sleep, and anxiety disorders. He is the former co-director & founder of the Center for Sexual Abuse Survivors, at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Cognitive Therapy. He has spoken nationally on issues of sexual health, sexuality, sexual trauma, relationships, LGBT issues, and sexual wellness. He serves on the board of directors of the Pennsylvania Society for Clinical Social Work (PSCSW), is a consulting editor of the family therapy journal Family Process, and is the chair of the Jewish Family Interest Group of the American Family Therapy Academy (AFTA). He has co-written a book chapter on “Sexuality and Culture” in Principles and Practice of Sex Therapy, edited by Sandra Leiblum/Guilford Press and has another book chapter on “Sexual Issues” in Multicultural Family Systems on its way to press.

Dennis Culhane, Ph.D., was awarded a grant by The Hilton Foundation to study the young adult trajectories of youth who have "aged out" of foster care and juvenile justice programs in Los Angeles County. The study will follow young adults through their earnings, health and mental health services use, receipt of public assistance, homelessness, and criminal justice system involvement. The study will compare outcomes for youth who enter supported independent living programs and transitional housing programs, versus those who do not.

The Stoneleigh Center has awarded a grant to Dennis Culhane to study the patterns of "multisystem services use" among youth in Philadelphia. The study will identify the early childhood risk factors of youth who are involved in two or more public systems, including truancy court, dependent care, juvenile justice, homelessness, special education and mental health services.  The study will also look at concurrent patterns of services use in the hopes of identifying opportunities for interagency collaboration, and for the leveraging of resources in support of these vulnerable youth as they transition to adulthood.

The US Department of Housing and Urban Development has awarded a grant to Dennis Culhane and Abt Associates to study the impact of various housing interventions on the stability and well being of families experiencing homelessness.  The study is a randomized controlled trial comparing families providing permanent housing subsidies with case management services and without such services, and as compared to homeless families placed in transitional housing, or receiving usual care through the shelter system.  The study will take place in twelve cities.

The US Department of Housing and Urban Development has renewed its contract with Dennis Culhane and Abt Associates to write the Annual Homelessness Assessment Report to the United States Congress.  The report is based on data provided by more than 200 cities and counties regarding the cumulative use of emergency and transitional housing each year in the US, and the number of unsheltered homeless at a given point in time during the year. The next report will be submitted to Congress in July, 2009.

Joan Davitt, Ph.D., was invited to present her research on "Understanding Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Home Health Outcomes: The Clinical Practice Factors" at the annual meeting of the Resource Centers for Minority Aging Research (RCMAR) in Birmingham, AL in April. There currently are 6 RCMARs across the country (including our very own UPENN, MARCH Center) funded by the National Institute of Aging/ National Institutes of Health. The mission of the RCMAR program is to decrease health disparities by: increasing research focused on the health of minority elders, mentoring minority academic researchers, improving recruitment and retention of minority research participants, and increasing the effectiveness and cultural sensitivity of interventions designed to improve their health and well-being.

Ezekiel Dixon-Román, Ph.D., presented a paper, “Deviance as Pedagogy: A Critical Perspective on Indigenous Cultural Capital”, and was an instructor for the American Educational Research Association Division G Social Context of Education Pre-conference Graduate Student Seminar on “Culturally Rooted Research Methods for Examining Social Contexts of Learning and Development” at the annual meeting for the American Educational Research Association held in San Diego. He will also be presenting a paper, “Products of the Revolution: The Social System of Supplementary and Comprehensive Education in Cuba”, at the July 2009 annual meeting of the Tepoztlán Institute for the Transnational History of the Americas in Tepoztlán Mexico.

Also, Dr. Dixon-Román received a research grant from the Trio Pilot Competition to support his research on "Intergenerational Inequality and Educational Consequences of Health Disparity."

Andrea Doyle, Ph.D., MSW, was awarded a scholarship from the NIH/CDC to attend a workshop on Behavioral and Social Science in HIV Vaccine Clinical Research and HIV Vaccine Trials Network Full Group Meeting held in Washington, DC from May 10 to 14.

Damon Freeman, JD, Ph.D., successfully organized a conference on cultural and intellectual history at the History of Science Department at Harvard University, April 23-26, 2009. The conference was in honor of his graduate school advisor, Dr. Larry Friedman, who is now teaching at Harvard. He also gave a talk at the conference on his book manuscript, "Not So Simple Justice: Kenneth B. Clark and His Ideas."

Dr. Freeman will also be attending and giving a talk on Kenneth Clark at the first annual "Critical Race Theory in the United Kingdom" Conference in June. The conference represents the work of British and American scholars to apply the insights of critical race theory to a global framework.

Richard Gelles, Ph.D., participated in a panel discussion, “Men Who Murder Their Families: What the Research Tells Us,” on June 2 at the National Institute of Justice, the research, development and evaluation arm of the Department of Justice. The panel was designed to share research into familicides to help the DOJ understand the psychological, social and economic factors that have contributed to a recent surge of family murder-suicides. Gelles was one of three experts who will discuss the issue and offer insight into the possible motivations.

Joseph McBride, MSW, gave a keynote address to the National Association of Perinatal Social Workers, National Conference, in Philadelphia, PA, entitled, “Social Work on the Edge of Life,” on May 9, 2009.

Roberta Sands, MSW, Ph.D., recently published an article in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, entitled, “The social integration of baalei teshuvah.” Also, with Dorit Roer-Strier and Joretha Bourjolly, Ph.D., she published, "Family reactions to religious change: The case of African American women who become Muslim," in Families in Society.

Joan Davitt, Ph.D., was invited to speak at the Long Term Care Financing Solutions conference sponsored by the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging in March. Dr. Davitt spoke on the current fragmented and underfunded system for financing long term care and offered recommendations for enhancing our ability in the US to provide adequate, appropriate and effective long term care. This conference was also broadcast on the Pennsylvania Cable Network.

Also, Dr. Davitt was recently awarded an R21 grant from the National Institute on Aging to study the contributing factors to racial/ethnic disparities in outcomes of Medicare home health care. Dr. Davitt is also currently funded by the University of Pennsylvania's MARCH center to conduct focus groups with home health agency staff to understand the practice factors which may contribute to disparities in home health care or home health outcomes. These two grants support Dr. Davitt's overall research agenda to understand the contributing factors which will thus inform the development of interventions to alleviate disparities in care and outcomes.

Ezekiel Dixon-Román, Ph.D., has been appointed for a three year term to the American Educational Research Association’s Research Advisory Committee. The Research Advisory Committee was adopted by the AERA Executive Board in 1998. The charge of this committee is to focus on three major issues: (1) Fostering high-quality research and discussions thereof; (2) the preparation of new researchers; and (3) funding and other infrastructure issues.

Also, Dr. Dixon-Román was awarded a University of Pennsylvania University Research Foundation grant to support his pilot research on “The Supplementary and Comprehensive Educational Organization of Cuba: A Pilot Study”. Since the 1959 Revolution, Cuba has had a longstanding commitment and practice of providing free quality (comprehensive) education in and out-of-school. This pilot study will examine the formal programs of out-of-school learning in Cuba and how they contribute to the high academic success of their students.

Andrea Doyle, Ph.D., will present dissertation research, “Rhythms of Clinical Process: Nonlinear Dynamic Approaches to Capturing Patterns of Change,” at the Society for Behavioral Medicine 30th Annual Meeting in Montreal on April 22-25.

Phyllis Solomon, Ph.D., has been selected to receive the Provost's Award for Distinguished Ph.D. Teaching and Mentoring 2008-2009. She and other award-winning teachers will be honored at a reception on April 27th in Houston Hall.

Susan B. Sorenson, Ph.D., presented her work with doctoral student Kristie A. Thomas, MSW, at the March 2009 conference of the Society for the Advancement of Violence and Injury Research in Atlanta, Georgia. Their paper, one of the 20 of the 258 submitted abstracts that were chosen for oral presentation, was nominated for Best Abstract. The presentation was based on their forthcoming paper, Views of Intimate Partner Violence in Same- and Opposite-Sex Relationships, which is scheduled to be published in the May 2009 issue of the Journal of Marriage and the Family.