Faculty Research Interests

My research interests have always been guided by my desire to contribute to the practice literature in the area of family violence. During my work with survivors of family violence, I was struck by the resilience of children and adolescents, who despite being exposed to the most harrowing of circumstances, were not just moving forward but in many cases were thriving. This has guided my research on resiliency and protective factors for children and adolescents exposed to violence, focusing on spirituality as a strength individuals possess. I am interested in spirituality not only as a protective factor for children and adolescents but also the process of spiritual development from childhood to adolescence. I have published scholarly articles and presented at international and national conferences on my research interests.

We live in a world where employment is an expectation and often a requirement for accessing certain safety net supports, such as TANF. Yet, we are also in an era where stable work may be fleeting at best. Given this situation, my research interests have centered on the effects that this precarious condition can have on families' material and emotional well-being.

Currently, I am studying the relationship between families' economic vulnerability and children's social-emotional competence with a focus on family processes. In future research, I plan a continued investigation of the impact of economic vulnerability on family well-being, expanding this inquiry to gain a richer understanding of individual families' experiences with, and responses to, economic vulnerability and the consequent influence on family and child well-being. I am also interested in better understanding intersectionality of identities, particularly those identities that are outside of the dominant culture, and experiences of precarity.

By identifying the interactive effects that system, family, and individual-level experiences can have on the well-being of children and families, my research is intended to build policymakers' and practitioners' understanding of policies' and conditions' impact on families, thereby enabling appropriate policy and programmatic responses to be identified and implemented. In particular, I aim to conduct research that informs social workers' micro- and macro-level responses (ideally in an integrated manner), and by doing so, facilitates social and economic justice and social change.

My research interests are culturally centered educational pedagogy, therapeutic methodological frameworks, healing, counseling agency-based practice, and emancipation-oriented paradigms for African Americans and other disempowered populations.

My overarching research agenda is to explore and understand the professional identity development of social work students, how values and personal attributes contribute to that development, and then how courses can be structured to enhance and continue to support the developmental process. My research goal is to examine the process of identity development to provide insight to the process, thereby enabling the development of course content that will further strengthen the students' professional development.

My research agenda has three major prongs:

1. Best Practices in the Training of Sexologists—This research seeks to identify and investigate evidence-based practice in the training of sexologists and the ways that practice is applied in the field.
2. Intercultural Issues in Sexuality Education & Training—A subset of the above, this research explores how complex understandings of culture inform the delivery of sexuality education across a wide spectrum of audiences, situations, and content.
3.  Identity Intersections in Sexology—This research thread explores the ways in which individual identity markers affect the delivery of sexuality education and sex therapy for both the educator/therapist and the recipient of those services.

• Clinical supervision and mentorship in social work practice
• Impact of communication technology
•  Mindfulness and self-care
• Trauma awareness
• Social work values and ethics

My research interests focus on the use of qualitative methods to examine the narratives of older adults. More specifically, I have been using narrative approaches to examine the oral histories of older adults in China and transgender older adults in the U.S. and Thailand. Past research has included an emphasis on grandparent caregivers of grandchildren; Soviet immigrant Jews, Ukrainians, Vietnamese, and Cambodians caring for their parents; older volunteers; and clinical use of behavior modification and older adults.

My research areas include community change strategies and the social impacts of environmental degradation. More specifically, I am working on a model to enhance citizen involvement in community change efforts. I also am examining ways that citizens can work together to address community problems such as crime.

I envision communication as a central process in our relational lives, not just a variable. I use a variety of methods to study communication in personal relationships. The majority of my research has focused on LGBTQ+ relational communication, especially the way that socio-cultural factors and shifts, such as marriage equality, affect these relationships. I am also especially interested in studying family communication, especially for marginalized families.

In my research, I explore the rich, diverse tapestry of human sexuality, recognizing the importance of acknowledging and respecting this diversity. Whether it’s addressing the challenges faced by sexuality professionals, or examining the complex issues surrounding sex, work, and ethics, my research pursuits aim to explore critical aspects of human sexuality in our ever-evolving world.

My main research interests include sexual ethics and diversity, cross-cultural sexuality, and Catholic sexual theology.  I often research justice issues in the field of sexuality, examining issues of consent, sexual behaviors, sexual fantasy, trauma, and sexuality education

Domestic minor sex trafficking, complex trauma, trauma-informed care, helping clients gain access to mental health services, crisis intervention, and sexual health and education.

I currently have three primary areas of ongoing research for publication and scholarship. These include: (1) sexual minority professional identity and development; (2) social work and human sexuality pedagogies; and (3) social work and human sexuality textbook efficacy.   

As an offshoot from my dissertation, the professional development of sexual minorities in the field of social work continues to interest me greatly. My dissertation raised numerous questions about the role of oppression, social identity, and organizational culture as well as how these factors, among others, influence sexual minorities pursuing graduate level education and beyond. As a result, I continue to explore identity management within the context of applications to therapists and educators.   

In light of my approach to pedagogy as an experiential educator, my respective fields of social work and human sexuality, and the institutional support of experiential learning in Widener University’s Strategic Plan. I am also passionate about studying the art and science of teaching.   
Finally, I have recently co-authored a textbook book on sexuality and social work to be employed within the context of both social work and human sexuality classrooms. Analyzing the efficacy of the text will be a focus for some years ahead.

I identify as an educator, a sexologist, and an interculturalist. As such, my research agenda is focused on combining these professional identities. As an educator, my interest lies in the development of curricula, interventions, and in the evaluation of sexuality education in communities, schools, and professional settings. 

As a sexologist, I am incredibly interested in the implications of sexual diversity on professionals' practice, whether they are working as educators, counselors/therapists, or researchers. As an interculturalist, I am interested in exploring the role that intersecting cultures play in the provision of service to individuals and groups that are culturally different from that of the provider. Each of these interests combines with the others throughout my research agenda. The focus of my scholarship is the measurement of the guided development of dispositions and skills in sexologists that reflect culturally sensitive practice that is responsive to sexological diversity. Sexological diversity is a term that references all aspects of human sexuality and their many iterations and facets, the variety of sexual expression, identities, and the many ways they manifest in individuals, societies, and cultures or subcultures. Historically, scholars have struggled to measure professional training designed to develop sensitivity to this diversity. I am working to define, develop, and understand sexological worldview, a construct that explains people's varied perspectives on human sexuality that is informed by their life experience, socialization, and cultural background. 

In addition, I am moving toward publishing and presenting further on the construct's use in approaches to education and training. Until now, the Intercultural Development Continuum (Hammer et al., 2003) and the related Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) have been used to inform and evaluate training that is done with human service professionals to develop intercultural skills and dispositions. I have developed several learning activities, assignments, and other ways to engage students in the development of a sexological worldview that is interculturally sensitive.

My research interests include organizational context issues, trauma, field supervision, and issues of deviance and stigma in mental health.

My research interests include practice evaluation, integrated care and the treatment of trauma, and social work and chronic health care.

My research focuses on sexual health behavior and the social, developmental, contextual, and psychological factors that influence sexual decision-making, particularly in substance-involved contexts. My overarching professional goals are to produce theoretically grounded research that informs understandings of sexual health behavior, thus providing specific targets on which to intervene to improve sexual health outcomes.

To address these research aims, I conduct research wherein I employ a variety of methodologies, including quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods designs. In the pursuit of these goals, I apply social psychological perspectives to investigate two overarching questions that guide my research agenda: (1) What are the social influences on sexual health behaviors and for whom and how are those factors influential? and (2) What are the psychosocial factors involved in sexual decisions and relationships and what are the mechanisms of action and interaction among these factors?.

My research interests include violence prevention and reentry; clinical social work practice; treatment of serious mental illness; children and adolescents; critical incident stress management with emergency service workers; trauma; crisis intervention; collaborative work with criminal justice; social and emotional competence; interagency collaboration; and organizational management.