University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy & Practice (SP2)

• About
• People
• Programs
• Research
• Continuing Ed
• News & Events
• Student Life
• Alumni

Current Doctoral Students

(partial list)

Amy Blank is currently working on her dissertation, which uses ethnographic methods to examine access to mental health treatment services for mentally ill offenders. She is also employed by the Center for Mental Health Services and Criminal Justice Research to oversee their instrument library, and as a co-investigator on a study that evaluates 3 reentry programs for people with mental illness. Her research interests focus on the interaction of the public mental health system and the criminal justice system, with a special focus on the lived experience of the “mentally ill offender”.

M.C. ("Cay") Bradley is a joint doctoral student in social welfare and education. A former high school teacher, her interests focus on policy and programs which will assist children in their academic careers. Specifically, Cay is interested in rigorous evaluation of existing programs and policies to expand the knowledge base in social welfare and education.

Sara Bressi is currently conducting dissertation research funded by a National Institute of Mental Health National Research Service Award. This research is exploring the factors that predict physical health care utilization by persons with serious mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia and major affective disorders. She also works on several other research projects exploring mental health and health services at the Social Work Mental Health Research Center at the School of Social Work. Sara is a licensed social worker and has worked with a variety of vulnerable populations in the field including persons with chronic illnesses, persons with serious mental illness, children with autism and other developmental delays, and terminally ill individuals.

Joel Caplan has a B.S. in Law & Justice from The College of New Jersey and a MA from Rutgers University School of Criminal Justice.  His research interests include corrections, police-community relations, disparity in the CJ system and criminal justice policy.  Joel is also interested in applying Geographic Information Systems (GIS) tools to these and other areas of research, policy and practice.

Julie Cederbaum received her BA from Drew University , her MSW from UCLA and is concurrently working on her MPH while in the doctoral program.  She has worked as a direct practice clinician in the arenas of welfare-to-work, health clinics, and housing programs. Her areas of interest are HIV prevention education, public health practice, and interventions with families and youth.

Melissa Dichter received her MSW also at Penn in 2002, and her BA with a concentration in Child Development and English at Tufts University in 1998. Melissa has practice experience in individual and group psychotherapy and psychosocial education with children, community-based child abuse prevention, and intimate partner violence prevention and intervention. Currently, Melissa is the Social Science Research Specialist for the National Clearinghouse for the Defense of Battered Women as well as a research assistant at the Center for Research on Youth and Social Policy. Melissa's research interests focus on violence against intimate partners and children, and the social service and criminal legal systems' responses to these issues.

Kerry Dunn received her MSW at Penn, her J.D. from Rutgers Law School-Newark, and her BA in Liberal Arts from the Evergreen State College. She has worked with death row inmates, homeless adults, and youth in the juvenile legal, foster care, and special education systems. Her interests include critical social work, social theory, prisons, capital punishment, democratization of the policymaking process, and participatory, qualitative, and ethnographic research methods.

Rachel Fusco received her MSW with a concentration on children and families from the University of Texas at Austin . She is currently conducting research on children exposed to domestic violence funded through an Administration for Children and Families pre-doctoral grant. This research uses cluster analysis to develop a typology of domestic violence events across an entire municipality, and examines both the prevalence and nature of children's exposure across types.

Heather Klusaritz received a BA in psychology from Marquette University and her MSW from the University of Pennsylvania. Her clinical practice includes medical social work with diverse populations and she continues her social work practice as a medical social worker at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests focus on the intersection between health care and social welfare policy, specifically access to health care for disadvantaged populations. She is currently a research assistant at the Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion (CHERP) at the Philadelphia VA Medical Center and is project manager for a study comparing racial disparities in health outcomes among patients treated in VA hospitals with disparities among similar patients treated in non-VA hospitals.

Sungeun Lee received her BA & MSW from Ewha Women's University , Korea . She is currently working on follow-up study of discharged psychiatric patients. Her areas of interest are community services for people with serious mental
illness.

Jason Matejkowski received his MSW from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  He has direct practice, program development and evaluation experience in mental health and substance abuse settings.  He has also served as a Research Associate for a state criminal justice planning agency.  His research interests focus on mental health and criminal justice and include work on projects involving persons with severe mental illness who are homeless, persons with severe mental illness who have been convicted of murder as well as community integration of persons with mental illness who have recently been released from prison.

Charlene McGrew received her BA in psychology from the University of California at Santa Cruz , her Th.M from Dallas Theological Seminary, and her MSW from the University of Pennsylvania . Her areas of interest include religion and social work, race relations, and community organizing. www.sp2.upenn.edu/~cmcgrew

Robin Mekonnen received her MSW from the University of Pennsylvania 's School of Social Work in May 2002. Robin received her BA in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Wisconsin in 1995 and has been working in the field of Child Welfare in the City of Philadelphia since then. Robin’s specific interests in policy analysis, program evaluation, outcome measures and other areas of research in child welfare.

Nushina Siddiqu has social work practice experience with diverse populations in the areas of family and child welfare, women’s health and development, and rural and urban health and community development. Her research interests are primarily in the areas of HIV prevention among ethnic minority populations, racial disparities in health, women’s health and socio-economic development, and international social development. In the last two years, Nushina has co-authored a journal article and a book chapter on strategies to involve at-risk, hard-to- reach and marginalized populations in HIV prevention and health promotion programs. She has also written extensively on health promotion in disadvantaged communities of South East Asia and the status of health in conflict-ridden areas of India .

Victoria Stanhope received her MSW from the University of Pittsburgh. Her direct practice experience includes being a case manager for adults in community-based mental health. She also received an MA in public policy from The George Washington University. She worked as a policy and communications specialist in Washington, DC specializing in children’s mental health. Her focus is mental health services research, examining consumer-provider relationships and their impact on consumer outcomes.

Kristie Thomas received her BS in psychology and sociology from St. Joseph 's University. She recently received her MSW from Penn and will be starting as a full-time PhD student in the fall. Her areas of interest are intimate partner
violence prevention and service effectiveness, community organizing, and housing policy.

Sara Wiesel received her BA and MSW from the University of Pennsylvania. She also has an MGA (Government Administration) from Penn and an MA in International Development from Brandeis University .  She has worked in affordable housing, homeless prevention, economic development, and outpatient mental health. Her areas of interest are: mental health, substance abuse, childhood trauma, and interventions with adults and adolescents.