Recent Dissertations

The name, date of graduation, and dissertation title of each graduate of the PhD program since 2004 is listed below.

Mina Addo, PhD

April 2021
Exploring Income Volatility and Financial Health Among Middle-Income Households

Lauren Ferreira Cardoso, PhD

April 2021
How parents’ perceptions of safety in public space affect the trajectory of adolescents in Ethiopia, Peru, and Vietnam

Angelina Ruffin, PhD

April 2021
Family Structure and Women’s Experiences of Intimate Partner Violence

Megan Farwell, PhD

July 2020
Community Grantmaking Committees: Prevalence, Conceptualization, and Funding Decisions

Peter Simonsson, PhD

July 2020
Offenders with Severe Mental Illness: The Role of Reactive and Proactive Violence in Recidivism

Viviana Chiu-Sik Wu, PhD

April 2020
The Promises and Challenges of Community Philanthropy

Marquisha Lawrence Scott, PhD

June 2019
Place Dilemma, Community Leadership, and Public Engagement on Social Media

Seongho An, PhD

April 2019
Effective Advocacy on Social Media: Results from a National Study of Homelessness Nonprofits in the United States

Allison R. Russell, PhD

April 2019
Volunteering in Retirement and Retirement from Volunteering: Three Papers on Volunteering in Older Adulthood

Daniel Heist, PhD

February 2019
Understanding Donor-Advised Funds: The Behavioral Economics, Macroeconomics, and Public Policies Relating to an Emerging Trend in Philanthropy

Ama Nyame-Mensah, PhD

November 2018
Generating the Other: Exploring the Multigenerational Effects of Exposure to the United States Sociopolitical System on the Item Response Patterns of Black and Latinx Children

Ashley Fuss, PhD

April 2019
The Prevention of Depression: A Machine Learning Approach

Jeffrey Sharlein, PhD

June 2018
“At the end of the Day, We’re Still in the Hood”: Lawbreaking, Agency, and Geography among Youth in Marginalized Neighborhoods

Chenyi Ma, PhD

June 2018
Home Recovery in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina

Jia Xue, PhD

Spring 2018
Agenda-Setting for Intimate Partner Violence: Exploring The Role Of Social Media, United States – Based Twitter

Dexia Kong, PhD

February 2018
Health Services Utilization among Older Asian Americans

Shimrit Keddem, PhD

July 2018
Application of the Social-Ecological Framework to Understand Breastfeeding Outcomes in Women Veterans

Kalen Flynn, MSW, PhD

April 2018
Beats per Minute: Exploring the Impact of Violence and Neighborhood Conditions on Adolescents in Philadelphia Neighborhoods

Christina DeNard, MSW, PhD

August 2017
Child Welfare Caseworkers: A Pivotal Role in the Uptake of Evidence-Based Practices

Sambuddha Chaudhuri, PhD

August 2017
Exploring the Role of Financial Incentives to Promote Adherence to Anti-Retroviral Medication in PLWHA

Travis Labrum, MSW, PhD

August 2017
Factors Associated with the Occurrence of Family Violence Perpetrated by Persons with Mental Illness: A National Online Survey

Ryan Petros, PhD

August 2017
Learning and Utilizing WRAP’s Framework: The Process of Recovery for Serious Mental Illness

Eunhae Kim, PhD

May 2017
Perception and Utilization of Telehealth Technology for Chronic Disease and Depression Care in Older Adults: A National Survey

Allison E. Thompson, PhD

May 2017
Natural and Formal Mentors Among Youth in Foster Care: How Do Mentor Type and Relationship Dynamics Explain Variance in the Quality of the Mentoring Relationship?

Alexandra Schepens Wimberly, PhD

May 2017
A Yoga Intervention for Substance Use and Stress for Returning Citizens

Daniel Treglia, PhD, MPP

April 2016
Using Positive Psychology to Explain Shelter Use: A Study of Homeless Families in New York City

Elizabeth Noll, PhD

April 2015
Navigating the Discourse of Dependency: Welfare-Reliant Mothers in College: An Institutional Ethnography

Megan Stanton, PhD

April 2015
Short-Circuiting Neoliberal Development: A Case Study of the Usha Multi-Purpose Cooperative

Marlene Walk, PhD

April 2015
Schools, Teachers, and Their Work: Essays on Attitudes and Responses to Organizational Change

Daniel Warren Curtis, PhD

January 2015
Blessings and Burdens: How Immigrants to the United States Who Are Latter-day Saints Perceive the Benefits and Costs of Being Religious

Minseop Kim, PhD

September 2014
Parental Nonstandard Work Schedules and Children’s Academic Achievement

Micheal Lynden Shier, PhD

June 2014
Social Innovations by Nonprofits: Inter- and Intra-Organizational Factors

Samira Ali, PhD

December 2013
A Family-Based Sexual Health Communication Intervention with a Sex Worker Community in Kolkata, India

Stacey Barrenger, PhD

December 2013
Mental Illness and Prison Reentry Intervention in a High Risk Context

Casey Bohrman, MSW, PhD

May 2013
Police Officer Assessments of Mental Illness, Substance Use and Co-occuring Mental Illness and Substance Use: It’s Common Sense

Michelle Evans-Chase, PhD

May 2013
Mindfulness Meditation with Incarcerated Youth: A Randomized Controlled Trial Informed by Neuropsychosocial Theories of Adolescence

Katharine McGinley Kaplan, PhD

May 2013
Assessing the Impact of an Internet-Based Parenting Intervention for Mothers with Psychiatric Disabilities: Randomized Controlled Trial

Julie A. Tennille, MSW, LSW, PhD

May 2013
An RCT of an Evidence-Based Practice Teaching Model with the Field Instructor/Social Work Intern Dyad

Robin Hernandez-Mekonnen, PhD

December 2012
Foster Care: An Analysis of Factors that Impact Placement Stability

Mayaan Lawental Schori, PhD

December 2012
Organizational Correlates of Medication Assisted Treatment in Substance Abuse Treatment Facilities: Examining How Institutional Forces Shape Treatment

Thomas Byrne, PhD

August 2012
Modeling rates of chronic homelessness in American communities

Itay Greenspan, PhD

August 2012
Israeli environmental NGOs and philanthropic foundations: Donor dependence, organizational characteristics, and selection mechanism

Jonathan Lukens, PhD

August 2012
The willingness to engage: A factorial survey of clinical social workers’ adherence to the value of client autonomy in treating the severely mentally ill

Heather A. Klusaritz, MSW, PhD

May 2012
Health professionals training in the era of the patient protection and affordable care act (P.L. 111-148): Educating to meet workforce demands

Charlene Chen McGrew, PhD

May 2012
Social service agency partnerships with religious congregations in Wilmington, Delaware

Raymond Albert, PhD

August 2011
How black men in the Cobbs Creek neighborhood of Philadelphia frame work and the work ethic in relation to their economic status

Francis Harper Barchi, PhD

August 2011
Autonomy, intimate partner violence, and women’s health in Northern Botswana: The Maun women’s study

Joanna Bisgaier, PhD

August 2011
Provider barriers to specialty medical and oral health care access for children

Sara Wiesel Cullen, PhD

August 2011
Maternal psychotic disorders and pediatric health care utilization: Medicaid-insured families in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

Manisha Joshi, PhD

August 2011
Attitudes towards wife-beating among women in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan: An empirical examination using multiple indicator cluster surveys

Kristie Thomas, PhD

August 2011
Homelessness and domestic violence: Examining patterns of shelter use and barriers to permanent housing

Rosemary Frasso, PhD

May 2011
Exploring the association between low maternal health literacy and pediatric health care utilization: Are limited reading skills a barrier of concern?

Sungkyu Lee, PhD

May 2011
Effects of social networks on medical comorbidity among people with serious mental illness

Stacy Raphael, PhD

May 2011
Race and higher education: A critical study of professors’ perceptions beyond courses on race, at a predominantly white institution

Huiquan Zhou, PhD

May 2011
The role of private non-profit organizations in promoting compulsory education in rural China: Applying the public-private mix model

Jodi Levinthal, PhD

December 2010
The community context of animal abuse and human maltreatment

Jason Matejkowski, PhD

August 2010
“Differential treatment” of persons with severe mental illness in parole release decisions?

Staci Perlman, PhD

May 2010
Building bridges to promote educational well-being: A population-based study of the impact and timing of out-of-home placement, child maltreatment, and homelessness

Brian Coleman, PhD

December 2009
Post-conversion experiences of African-American male Sunni Muslims: Community integration and masculinity in twenty-first century Philadelphia

Karen Zurlo, PhD

December 2009
The mediating effects of the sense of control on the financial well-being of older adults

Julie A. Cederbaum, PhD

August 2009
The influence of maternal HIV Serostatus on mother-daughter sexual risk communication and adolescent engagement in HIV risk behaviors

Melissa E. Dichter, PhD

August 2009
Safety risks and service needs among women who have experienced police intervention for intimate partner violence

Tae Kuen Kim, PhD

August 2009
Impact of income transfers on poverty reduction among the working poor in Korea

Tawandra L. Rowell, PhD

August 2009
The impact of drugs on the sexual behavior of incarcerated African-American males

Kerry Dunn, PhD

May 2009
Re-forming the social: Neoliberal voluntarism in the warehouse prism

Mona Basta, PhD

December 2008
It’s a matter of trust: How single mothers leaving welfare make child care decisions

Joel M. Caplan, PhD

August 2008
Parole release decisions in New Jersey: Effects of positive and negative victim and non-victim input

Beverly D. Frazier, PhD

May 2008
Assessing Philadelphia’s community institutional capacity for prisoner reentry

Rachel A. Fusco, PhD

May 2008
Domestic violence crimes and child exposure: A population-based investigation of direct sensory exposure and the nature of involvement

Mary Cary Bradley, PhD

December 2007
Mothers, children, and parenting: The role of age and a test of home visitor services as a strategy to improve parenting of adolescent mothers

Michele A. Belliveau, PhD

August 2007
Navigating the policy context: Experiences of undocumented Mexican mothers in a new suburban immigrant community

Victoria E. Stanhope, PhD

August 2007
The role of process: Examining consumer-provider service interactions

Mary Cavanaugh, PhD

May 2007
An exploration of the feasibility and utility of the Dialectical Psychoeducational Workshop (DPEW) as a preventative intervention for males at potential risk of intimate partner violence

Sungeun Lee, PhD

May 2007
Predictors of departure from supported housing among persons with severe mental illness

Amy Blank, PhD

December 2006
Access for some, justice for any? The allocation of mental health services to people with mental illness leaving jail

Min-Kyoung Song, PhD

August 2006
Termination of parental rights and adoption in foster care

Sara K. Bressi, PhD

May 2006
Utilization of physical health services among persons with severe mental illness

Margaret Lee Koppel, PhD

May 2006
Accessible housing for low-income tenants with physical disabilities following the 1988 Fair Housing Act Amendments: Outcomes and processes in four cities

Kim E. Nieves, PhD

May 2006
Dispatch and delay: An analysis of case processing time for Pennsylvania capital post conviction petitions

Sara-Ann Steber, PhD

December 2005
Risk and protective factors that contribute to smoking among pregnant and parenting teens

Hyekyung Choo, PhD

August 2005
Stress process of adjustment problems among adolescents in immigrant families: Generational differences

Nushina M. Siddiqui, PhD

August 2005
Psychosocial and cultural factors affecting substance-abusing African American women’s HIV sexual risk behaviors: A risk and protection perspective

Janis L. Goodman, PhD

May 2005
Identity formation within a multicultural context: A field study of early adolescent African-American girls set in an inner-city community in North Philadelphia

Nicole G. Ives, PhD

May 2005
Understanding Bosnian refugee integration and how it differs by country of resettlement: Denmark and the United States of America

Robert P. Fairbanks II, PhD

December 2004
Communal re-appropriation of blighted spaces: Governmentality and the politics of everyday life in the Kensington Recovery House movement