Samira Ali
samali@sp2.upenn.edu

Previous Education
MSSW, Columbia University, 2006
BA, Purdue University, 2004

Research Interests
HIV/AIDS education, mental health, community collaborative work, sex workers, and adolescents, South Asia

Stacey L. Barrenger
sbarre@sp2.upenn.edu

Previous Education
MA, University of Chicago, School of Social Service Administration, 2008
BA, Michigan State University, Multidisciplinary Degree in Social Services, Additional Major in Psychology, 1990

Research Interests
Stacey’s research interests are mental health services for persons with serious mental illness, especially those involved in the criminal justice system. She is also interested in organizational influence on providers and consumers and its impact on the provision of mental health services. Her direct practice experience includes transitioning people to the community from a state psychiatric hospital and supervising two Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) teams in Chicago. She has also served as the coordinator on a large, multi-site, NIMH research project examining the genetics of bipolar disorder and as the data manager for an evaluation of Forensic ACT for persons with serious mental illness leaving prison. Currently, she is collecting data on the fidelity of Critical Time Intervention (CTI) for persons with serious mental illness leaving New Jersey prisons and living in Camden County.

Joanna Bisgaier
bisgaier@sp2.upenn.edu

Previous Education
Georgetown University, BA (Psychology) 2004
University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Practice, MSW 2008

Research Interests
Health Policy Research, Pediatric Health Care Access, Hospital-based Social Work, Special Education and Children with Disabilities

Sara Wiesel Cullen
swiesel@sp2.upenn.edu

Research Interests
Parents with Serious Mental Illness (SMI), Mental Health Services, Maternal and Child Health, Community-based Interventions

Michelle Evans-Chase
meva@sp2.upenn.edu

Research Interests
Michelle Evans-Chase is a first year doctoral student at the School of Social Policy & Practice at the University of Pennsylvania. After receiving her Masters in Social Psychology from San Francisco State University Michelle worked for the Public Research Institute, specializing in coordinating field studies in substance abuse in the general population and criminal justice setting and in assisting new faculty at San Francisco State with writing grant proposals to study health disparities. During that time, she also taught Psychology and Sociology at a number of 2 and 4-year institutions both in California and New Jersey. Michelle’s research interests lay primarily in the family of origin experiences of incarcerated youth, including such experiences as exposure to or experience of family violence and/or parental incarceration and the implications of these for intervention, treatment and public perception of youth involved in the juvenile justice system.

Rosemary Frasso, MS, MSPH, CPH
rofrasso@sp2.upenn.edu

Research Interests
Health Disparities, Maternal Child Health and Health Literacy

Rosemary Frasso returned to her studies after a long career in healthcare and radiology administration.  Her current work is informed by her clinical experience. She holds degrees in Radiology and Ultrasound from Northeastern University, as well as a degree in Women’s Studies from Wellesley College. She holds two Master’s Degrees from the Harvard School of Public Health, the first in Maternal Child Health, and the second in Society Human Development and Health.

Rosemary’s interests include maternal child health, health disparities and the impact of literacy on health care access and quality of care.  Rosemary is currently a doctoral candidate who enjoys teaching and is currently adjunct faculty at Drexel University’s School of Public Health and here at the University of Pennsylvania.

Itay Greenspan
itay@sp2.upenn.edu

Research Interests
Nonprofit organizations, Philanthropic Foundations, Advocacy NGOs, Israeli civil society and environmental movement, environmental and social justice.

Manisha Joshi
manishaj@sp2.upenn.edu

Research Interests
Manisha Joshi is a doctoral student in the School of Social Policy & Practice at the University of Pennsylvania. She has worked in various research projects related to women and child health, and intimate partner violence in both India and the U.S. Her areas of interest include nonfatal strangulation as a form of intimate partner violence, intersection of the criminal justice system and intimate partner violence, health effects of intimate partner violence and issues related to violence against women and children in the developing world. She is currently engaged in research examining the characteristics of intimate partner violence incidents that come to the attention of the police. In addition, she is also working with her advisor (Prof Susan Sorenson) on a WHO report outlining the health indicators of violence against children for low-and middle-income countries.

Sungkyu Lee
sungkyu@sp2.upenn.edu

Sungkyu Lee received MSW from Washington University in St. Louis. After graduation, he worked at the Asian Pacific Counseling and Treatment Center in Los Angeles as a psychiatric social worker. His areas of research interest include mental health interventions for people with severe mental illness, social support and social networks, as well as racial/ethnic disparities in health and mental health service utilization.

Jason Matejkowski
matejkow@sp2.upenn.edu

Jason 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 and Program Manager for a state criminal justice planning agency.  His research interests lie in the intersection of mental health and criminal justice systems and include projects that have focused on reciprocity in the social relations of mental health service consumers, Housing First and ACT, persons with severe mental illness who have been convicted of murder, and the impact of severe mental illness on parole release decisions.

Charlene Chen McGrew
cmcgrew@sp2.upenn.edu

Research Interests
Religion & Spirituality, race relations, urban sociology, community organizing and development, organizational dynamics, cultural competency

Robin Mekonnen
rmekonne@sp2.upenn.edu

Research Interests
Child Welfare, Child Maltreatment, Policy, Reform, Termination of Parental Rights, Placement Stability, Health and Well Being Outcomes for Children in Out of Home Care

Maayan (Lawental) Schori
mschori@sp2.upenn.edu

Previous Education
2007, Doctoral Student, School of Social Policy & Practice, University of Pennsylvania

2005 – 2008, MA in social work (Cum Laude), School of Social Work, Faculty of Social Welfare and Health Sciences, University of Haifa, Israel. Thesis title: The correlation between intake procedures to methadone maintenance treatment and variables in the treatment process – entry, retention/dropout and urine testing.

2002 – 2005, BA in Social Work (Cum Laude), School of Social Work, Faculty of Social Welfare and Health Sciences, University of Haifa, Israel.

Research Interests
Substance Abuse, HIV, risk behaviors, treatment and harm reduction, organizational aspects and their effect on treatment outcomes, service provision and utilization, social work research methods.

Kristie Thomas, MSW
kristiet@sp2.upenn.edu

Previous Education
MSW, School of Social Policy & Practice, University of Pennsylvania, 2005
BS, Sociology and Psychology, St. Joseph’s University, 2000

Research Interests
Kristie's primary area of research focuses on issues related to intimate partner violence. I am specifically interested in the relationship between intimate partner violence and housing instability, including shelter utilization and homelessness.  Other related areas include intimate partner violence in adolescent relationships and the impact of intimate partner violence on women’s quality of life.

Practice Interests
Kristie's primary interest is in macro social work practice. I am particularly interested in community organizing and its use as a vehicle for individual and community empowerment.

Abhijit Visaria
avisaria@sp2.upenn.edu

Abhijit is a graduate in Economics from the University of Delhi and has a Masters degree with specialization in Urban and Rural Community Development in Social Work from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. Before joining Penn in 2008, he worked for three years on initiatives in strengthening public health systems, integrating health with community based structures and urban health systems reform with the Early Child Health team of the Social Initiatives Group (www.icchn.org.in), and prior to that for a year in Elementary Education (www.icee.org.in).

Research Interests
Health systems, health financing and insurance, public health, community development structures.

Mary Huiquan Zhou
zhouhuiq@sp2.upenn.edu

Previous Education
MSW  & Ed.M, Boston University, 2007
MA (Neurobiology), Boston University, 2005
BE (Computer Science); BS (Biotechnology) Zhejiang University, ChuKeChen Honors College, Hanzhou, China, 2003

Research Interests
Mary Huiquan Zhou came from Nanjing, China. Initially, she came to US to pursue a PhD in Neurobiology, but later decided to go into social work. After receiving her M.A. in biology in 2005, she went on getting her M.S.W. and M.Ed. from Boston University. During that time, she worked with Teen Prostitution Prevention Project and Boston Police Department to combat both domestic and international human trafficking. She was also involved in drafting the anti-human trafficking bill for Massachusetts.

Mary’s research interest is human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation of juveniles.