M.S.W. Adjunct Instructors
Assistant Adjunct Professor
No biographic information available.
Adjunct Professor
Rose Marie Äikäs is a professor at CUNY-Queensborough Community College, where she teaches courses in criminal justice and social work. Her current research projects measure college readiness in incarcerated students, and look at the education and internship experiences of human service students who were formerly incarcerated.
Before her academic positions, Äikäs worked in a variety of mental health settings, including in a program providing support for formerly incarcerated people pursuing college degrees, as a senior case manager in halfway houses, as a mental health clinician in prisons and as a counselor in children and family services. In 2016, New York State Corrections and Community Supervision named her Volunteer of the Year.
At the Smith College School for Social Work Äikäs has taught Substance Abuse Policy, Treatment and Services; and Criminal Justice Policies: Implications for Social Work Practice.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Jonathan Alschech holds a Ph.D. from the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto and a Ph.D. from the School of Historical Studies at Tel Aviv University. He is passionate about social work data science, promoting and advancing the critical and ethical use of data in social services provision, policy and research. Alschech worked with youth experiencing homelessness in downtown Toronto and with released sex offenders in Ontario. He is currently the national data lead for the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness (CAEH). Alschech taught and conducted research in universities in Israel-Palestine, South Africa and northern British Columbia. His main areas of scholarship are homelessness, critical quantitative analysis and social work data science and the historical and comparative study of apartheid.
Adjunct Associate Professor
Anderson (Andy) Al Wazni is a 2014 graduate of the Smith College SSW M.S.W. program and current doctoral student in social work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Al Wazni is pursuing research on the intersection of climate change, state infrastructure and violence. She is also a public educator on Islamophobia and works for the North Carolina Area Health Education Centers delivering professional trainings for clinicians, educators and medical professionals on best practices with Muslim populations. She is a recipient of the first Social Work Health Futures Fellowship funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation through Portland State University. Al Wazni is committed to engaging anti-racist and social justice theories when advocating for sound public policy in both her research and approach to classroom instruction.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
No biographic informaton is available.
Adjunct Associate Professor
No biographic information available.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
No biographic information available.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Reina Batrony is an experienced multilingual vice president of services with a demonstrated history of working in the non-profit organization management industry and with diverse focus areas in child welfare, juvenile justice, education, community advocacy and organizing, and health and mental hygiene. She joined The Foundling in 2010 as a therapist in the Bronx and has grown into different roles, with now over 12 years of experiences with program design and implementation, various evidence-based models, community engagement and creating ongoing program improvements to best meet the needs of those we serve. Batrony is a licensed mental health counselor who is fluent in English, French, Creole and Spanish. She is a member of the Foundling’s DEI Council as well as the NYS Coalition for Children’s Behavioral Health DEIB Committee and Board Governance Committee.
Outside of The Foundling, Batrony is an adjunct professor and policy field coordinator with Smith College SSW, teaching and advising second year graduate students on courses such as Community and Agency Practices, Racism in the United States: Implications for Social Work Practice and advising on Community-Based Anti-Racism Experience (CBARE). Batrony also serves as senior advisor for The Foundling’s Implementation Support Center (ISC), supporting different agencies, jurisdictions and others with change management and assessing opportunities for best outcomes for children and families using evidence-based interventions, and advising on opportunities with the Family First Prevention Service Act. Batrony is certified in diversity and inclusion with Cornell, Lean Six Sigma Green Belt, and received her Standard of Quality for Family Strengthening and Support certification in February 2022 from the National Family Support Network.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Joanna Beltrán Girón (Professor J, she/they) is an anti-imperialist Salvadoran queer poet, feminista comunitaria, organizer, activist, educator and researcher. By centering liberation psychology, decolonial feminisms, spirituality, ancestral healing and metaphysics, Beltrán Girón's activist research accompanies processes of concientización and intergenerational healing among Salvadorans who have survived colonial, state and interpersonal violence(s). She has a B.A. in psychology from UC Santa Cruz, an M.A. in Latin American Studies from UT Austin, an M.A. and an M.Phil. in psychology from the CUNY Graduate Center (GC), and she is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in critical social-personality psychology at the GC. She’s also trained in reiki and EMDR therapy.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
No biographic information available.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Neil Bilotta is a social worker and researcher focusing on two independent and intersecting phenomena: (a) deconstructing racism/white supremacy in social work practice, education, policy, and research and (b) exploring the overt and subtle effects of eurocentrism, colonialism, whiteness, and Othering on refugee resettlement processes. He examines how emancipatory and participatory research and decolonizing epistemologies can shift social work theory/interventions to align with refugees' realities, as opposed to outside, top-down approaches.
Bilotta has taught Anti-Oppression in Social Work Practice, Global Social Problems, and Social Welfare Policy. He has worked as a social worker with “unaccompanied refugee minors” in the U.S. Bilotta's recent work explored eurocentric research practices with refugee young people in Kakuma refugee camp, Kenya. Bilotta has published articles on international social work field placements and deconstructing power and colonialism in research/research methodologies with refugee communities.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Sara Brackenbury works with adolescents and adults in private practice in Pennsylvania, with offices in Philadelphia and the Lehigh Valley. Her practice is informed by psychodynamic, attachment, and intersubjectivity theories. Before coming to Smith, she was adjunct faculty at Wayne State University in Detroit.
Brackenbury earned her M.S.W. at the University of Michigan in 2001. She has over 20 years of clinical experience working in community mental health, college counseling and various outpatient clinics. Brackenbury specializes in the treatment of trauma and is clinically interested in attachment and the intergenerational transmission of trauma. She trained in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and is currently pursuing psychoanalytic training at the Institute for Relational Psychoanalysis in Philadelphia.
Adjunct Professor
Stephen Bradley is a fellow of the Child Trauma Academy, who received his M.Ed. in counseling from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1992 and his M.S.W. from Smith College School for Social Work in 2002. He worked for 20 years in non-profit agencies including supervising and directing intensive home-based and residential programs in Massachusetts and Connecticut. He has been on the adjunct faculty at Smith College School for Social Work since 2010, where he has taught First Year Practice, Family Theory and Community Practice with Youth and Families.
He’s been in full time private practice since 2014 where he specializes in work with youth and families struggling with the effects of developmental trauma ,and teaching, training and consulting around the Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics. He has a lifelong commitment to weaving social justice and anti-oppression frameworks into all areas of his work.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Maria del Pilar Bratko earned an M.F.A. in feminist clinical psychology from New College of California, and her doctorate at the Smith College School for Social Work. She teaches in several formats from didactic lectures to newly-licensed and mature career clinicians to experiential workshops in a variety of professional topics. She also presents internationally along the theme of treating symptoms related to longing and belonging as it relates to the immigrant experience.
Maria del Pilar maintains a private practice in Oakland, California with plans to expand services in New York.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Chelsey Branham (she/they, Chickasaw/Cherokee/Pawnee) is the owner and CEO of One Whole Village Consulting, LLC. She specializes in transformational equity in public administration, public policy, and economic development and has over 17 years of experience in the public, private and nonprofit sectors. As an Indigenous person and a leader in Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Transformation (EDIT), she has always sought out diverse and global perspectives to find equitable and innovative solutions to economic, policy and management issues. Transforming systems through policy improvement and development have been a huge priority in Branham’s career, as both a former state representative and a consultant. She has also spent considerable time in grassroots advocacy, community mobilization and campaign management. Much of her work centers on building bridges between communities and creating capacity and access to resources for communities of color. Branham spends her summers at Smith College School For Social Work as an adjunct professor of Indigenous Social Welfare and Public Policy, The History of Racism in the U.S., Sociocultural Concepts, Agency and Community Practice, and Decolonizing and Indigenizing Research Practices. Branham earned their B.A. in psychology and religious studies, and their M.A. in international economics and development from the University of Oklahoma.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
No biographic information available.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
No biographic information available.
Adjunct Associate Professor
For over 17 years Natasha Campbell has supported a space for individuals to grow through the challenges of life, face their traumas, rebuild families and improve their overall emotional wellness. Campbell has a B.S.W. from the University of South Florida, an M.S.W. from Barry University and an M.B.A from the Isenberg School at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Campbell’s early journey was supporting young adults aging out of foster care and her current journey of supporting one as they heal from the emotional traumas of life stressors, all while facing her own challenges and reminding herself, “This too shall pass.” She remembers her mom telling her, “Life is always challenging. Look at it as you’re just on another adventure.” For herself, she faces all challenges mindfully with lots of compassion.
Today Campbell is an adjunct professor for Smith College School of Social Work and Elms College. She leads a thriving private psychotherapy group practice called Multicultural Clinical Services, LLC, and supports organizations to address power dynamics, work-life imbalances, inequalities, diversity and inclusivity for a healthier working environment through mindfulness practices and employee wellness. Her goal for organizations is to be able to bridge her world from social work practice to apply best practices for employee wellness by improving their current organization culture. What companies get is her clinical expertise, business mindset, a highly energetic and skillful consultant to cultivate a culture of employee wellness.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
No biographic information available.
Adjunct Associate Professor
No biographic information is available.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
No biographic information is available.
Adjunct Professor
Katya Cerar, Ph.D., LICSW, is the senior director of Field Education at Smith College and has taught and supervised students from various New England schools of social work. Most recently she was the director of young adult and adult community services programs and a program for the Prevention and Treatment of Early Psychosis (PREP) in Western MA. An experienced supervisor and trainer, Cerar has supervised teams of staff in day treatment, outreach and residential services, and has practiced in residential, forensic and outpatient settings, and private practice. She has provided consultation to agencies in a number of areas.
Cerar is a BTTG certified DBT clinician and a certified juvenile court clinician. Primary clinical practice areas include adolescents and young adults with histories of trauma and major mental illness. Cerar holds an M.S.W. from Boston College and a Ph.D. in social work from Smith College School for Social Work
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Davis Chandler (they/them) was clinically trained at Smith SSW and graduated in 2011. They have worked in a community mental health setting with children, families and adults; for a small nonprofit working with adults experiencing extreme mind states and major life disruptions and currently maintain a private practice with the Center for Psychotherapy and Social Justice in Northampton. They are the co-director of Translate Gender, an advocacy, education and therapy nonprofit working towards gender justice. Their clinical work exclusively serves erotically marginalized communities with queer, trans, nonbinary, poly and kink identified clients, families and relationships. Their areas of interest include: nonbinary and trans identities, alternative family structures, issues concerning sexuality or sexual practices, queer family building, fertility issues, trauma, grief and loss. The heart of their work is social justice and it is their mission to disrupt and resist white supremacy, patriarchy, cissexism, ableism, heterosexism, fatphobia and all systems of oppression.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
No biographic information is available.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Julie Clockston is an LCSW and assistant professor in the department of social work at the Metropolitan State University of Denver, in the B.S.S.W. and M.S.W. programs. Her research interests include individuals and families with developmental and intellectual disabilities, improving coping skills among individuals experiencing depression and anxiety through CBT, poverty awareness groups, improving community readiness among individuals with developmental disabilities, and participatory research with marginalized populations. Clockston is also a faculty field instructor and the current president of the National Association of Social Workers, Colorado Chapter (NASW), The Association for Successful Parenting (TASP), and member of the National Association of Black Social Workers Colorado Chapter (NABSW). During the summer at Smith SSW, she teaches Social Work Child Development. Clockston has been an early childhood educator, therapeutic foster parent, developmental disabilities specialist, group and individual therapist, LCSW candidate supervisor, family assessor, a trainer with nonprofits and solopreneur.
Adjunct Professor
Michael J. Constantino completed his doctoral training in clinical psychology at Penn State, a clinical internship at SUNY Upstate Medical University and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Stanford University Medical Center. He is currently a professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he directs the Psychotherapy Research Lab. Constantino’s research interests center on patient, therapist, and dyadic factors in psychosocial treatments, pantheoretical principles of clinical change and measurement-based care. He has authored over 170 articles and chapters and over 330 presentations. Constantino’s work has been recognized internationally, including with the receipt of multiple research grants, contracts, awards and fellowship in the American Psychological Association. Constantino is an associate editor for Psychotherapy and the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, and past president of the Society for the Advancement of Psychotherapy and the North American Society for Psychotherapy Research.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Dharma E. Cortés received her bachelor’s and master’s degree in clinical psychology from the University of Puerto Rico, and a doctorate degree in sociology from Fordham University. She completed post-doctoral training in medical anthropology at Harvard Medical School’s Department of Social Medicine. Cortés is an instructor and senior scientist at the Health Equity Research Laboratory at Cambridge Health Alliance/Harvard Medical School. She is also the director of Latino Projects at Environment & Health Group, a research company seeking technology solutions for global health.
Cortés conducts community-based research on health, mental health, obesity prevention and access to healthcare. She has applied her multidisciplinary training in social sciences to conduct qualitative research for the development and implementation of interventions, surveys and social marketing campaigns, among other activities. Cortés has been principal investigator, co-investigator and consultant to numerous studies on the delivery of health care services.
Adjunct Professor
Mamta Dadlani, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist whose practice, training and research efforts support the exploration of intersectional identities and the related experiences of oppression and privilege on individual, interpersonal and systemic levels. She recently completed a Fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Psychoanalysis-West and is a Scholar of Multicultural Concerns in the Division of Psychoanalysis of the APA. Dadlani's interests include psychotherapy process and relational change; countertransference use and management; intergroup dialogue; hip hop and healing; mental health challenges for PoC in higher education; and community partnerships. Her teaching areas at Smith include socio-cultural concepts, group theory and practice, and research methods.
Adjunct Associate Professor
Jamie Daniels is a licensed independent clinical social worker and psychotherapist. She is a graduate of Smith’s M.S.W. program and is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Smith SSW. Daniels’ research interests include the mental health of Black women and other people of color, the social determinants of mental health, environmental and political forces that shape mental health and unionization as a strategy for improving mental health.
Daniels maintains a private practice in Amherst, Massachusetts, where she works primarily with people of color and the LGBTQIA community. She approaches her work from a psychoanalytic, political economy and racial justice perspective. She fluidly addresses race, gender, sexuality, class oppression, identity development and social position in treatment.
At Smith SSW, Daniels has taught Family Theory, Problems in Biopsychosocial Functioning, Agency and Community Practice, and Comparative Psychodynamic Theories. She is a former Sotomayor Fellow, and is currently the course coordinator for Agency and Community Practice and a CBARE (Community Based Anti-Racism Experience) advisor.
Adjunct Professor
Maria del Mar Farina earned both her M.S.W. and her doctorate at the Smith College School for Social Work. She is currently an assistant professor in the M.S.W. program at Westfield State University, and the author of the forthcoming book Ethnic Identity and U.S. Immigration Policy Reform: American Citizenship and Belonging amongst Hispanic Immigrants.
At SSW, del Mar Farina teaches courses in social work practice, helped redesign the clinical practice sequence and she has served as the assistant director of field office.
Del Mar Farina also maintains a private practice in Longmeadow and Springfield, Massachusetts, and had a long tenure as a clinician in the Smith College Counseling Center. In addition to her work in social work practice and education, del Mar Farina worked for many years in nonprofit management.
Professor Emeritus and Adjunct Professor
James Drisko’s recent work focuses on evidence-based practice, the common factors model, clinical work with children and families including reactive attachment disorder and its treatment, psychotherapy evaluation and qualitative research methods.
Drisko received his bachelor’s degree in psychology from Amherst College, his M.S.W. from Smith College School for Social Work and his Ph.D. from Boston College Graduate School of Social Work.
Drisko was elected to the National Academies of Practice in Clinical Social Work in 2008 and was named as an inaugural Fellow of the Society for Social Work and Research in 2014.
Adjunct Professor
Cindy Dubuque-Gallo is a long-time social justice advocate and political activist. She has served on numerous boards and commissions including the San Francisco Human Rights Advisory Board, and the Hartford Commission for LGBT Issues. She recently served as a board member on the National Social Worker Voter Mobilization Board (Voting is Social Work). Dubuque-Gallo has worked as a lobbyist and consultant, promoting social welfare policies to increase workers’ wages, to end homelessness, to improve health equity and healthcare, and to address school lunch debt shaming. Her dissertation research is on the devolution of the National School Lunch Program and its impact upon addressing child food insecurity.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Averi N. Gaines received her M.S. in clinical psychology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass). Prior to beginning graduate school, she worked as a clinical research coordinator in the Center for Psychotherapy Research of the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Gaines is currently completing her doctoral training at UMass in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, where she works in the Psychotherapy Research Lab. Her research interests include patient, therapist, dyadic and contextual factors that influence psychotherapy processes and outcomes; mental health care disparities, measurement-based care and psychotherapy integration. Her work has been disseminated at professional conferences and in peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters.
Adjunct Associate Professor
Florence Gelo is a psychoanalyst/psychotherapist in private practice specializing in chronic and life-threatening illness who has special expertise in cultural and religious diversity and medical decision-making at the end of life. She is an associate professor at the College of Medicine, Drexel University in Philadelphia where she teaches in the Division of Medical Humanities and directs the Humanities Scholars Program. Gelo is the behavioral science educator for the Temple Northwest Community Family Medicine Residency Program and is the author of numerous publications in peer-reviewed journals
In 2008, "The HeART of Empathy: Using the Visual Arts in Medical Education," a film that Gelo directed and produced, was released and distributed around the country. She uses works of art to teach clinical and interpersonal skills to social workers, theological students and medical professionals in training. At the Smith College School for Social Work, Gelo has taught Problems in Biopsychosocial Functioning.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
No biographic information available.
Adjunct Associate Professor
John Gill is a founding member of Beats Rhymes and Life Inc. in Oakland, California, an organization that uses the process of creating rap music to engage at-promise youth in mental health services. In this role, he has served as the lead clinician and chief operating officer since the organization’s founding in 2009.
Gill earned his M.S.W. at SSW in 2007, and spent many years working with youth and families involved in foster care and the juvenile justice system before beginning his work with BRL.
Gill has been a professor at the Smith College School for Social Work since 2015, leading courses on working with adolescents as well as teaching first year practice. He leans on his 20+ years of experience in the field, and experience as a former Smith student, to support aspiring clinical social workers in beginning their journey toward supporting social justice and mental health.
Adjunct Professor
Paul Gitterman has been associated with the Smith College School for Social Work since the early 1990s, first as an M.S.W. student, and then as a clinical instructor an adjunct professor. He also holds a master’s degree in psychoanalytic developmental psychology from the University College London and the Anna Freud Center.
Gitterman works at Williams College Psychological Services, providing psychotherapy, supervision, and outreach services. In addition, he maintains private practices in Williamstown and Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
Adjunct Professor
Throughout her professional career, Monifa Groover has served in a variety of clinical settings, including but not limited to working with military personnel, perpetrators of sexual crimes, individuals faced with substance abuse challenges and individuals within the criminal justice system. She has also served as adjunct professor for Denver University and UMass Global.
She is CEO of Within Your Reach Consulting Services, whose mission is to cultivate the personal and spiritual development of women globally. Here she offers counseling and coaching strategies designed to help women live healthier, happier and more abundant lives. As a published author, her writings are designed to propel individuals and organizations toward greatness.
Groover holds a B.A. in psychology from Clark Atlanta University; M.S.W. from Smith College School for Social Work; MPA with a concentration in management from Troy State University and holds licensure in multiple states.
Adjunct Professor
Martha Hadley is a psychologist in private practice in New York City, and teaches in the M.S.W. program at Touro College in addition to the Smith College School for Social Work. She is also the associate editor of Studies in Gender and Sexuality. For most of the last decade, she was the managing director of the Michael Cohen Group in New York, which undertakes research studies and scientific evaluations for a variety of organizations and institutions. At the SSW, Hadley teaches courses in research and clinical theory.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Greer Hamilton is a current third year Ph.D. candidate at Boston University School of Social Work. Her work broadly focuses on the intersection of racial equity, the built environment, urbanism and health equity. Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Drug Addiction, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Boston University Clinical andTranslational Science Institute. She holds a dual degree bachelor of arts in health and human services and a master of social work from the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. When not buried in dissertation work, she is a practicing postpartum doula, enjoys hiking with her dog Birch, and is a board member of the Eastern Massachusetts Abortion (EMA) fund.o
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Huey Hawkins, Jr. is a psychodynamic psychotherapist in private practice. He earned his doctorate degree in clinical social work from the Institute for Clinical Social Work where his research and clinical interests focus on the intersection of culture, race and the mind. His dissertation explored unconscious messages of endangerment by mothers to their African American sons. As an experienced clinician, Hawkins has a long history of providing psychotherapy services in multiple public and private settings, including his own psychotherapy practice in St Louis and Oklahoma City. He teaches clinical social work courses at Smith College, George Mason University and the Institute for Clinical Social Work, where he also serves as the Academic Diversity and Inclusion Coordinator. Additionally, Hawkins is a candidate in adult psychoanalysis at the St. Louis Psychoanalytic Institute.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
As a social worker concerned with social, economic, and racial justice; as an admitted data viz geek who can perseverate for hours on the finest details of a visual representation; and as a researcher interested in regional, racial, and gender disparities in social determinants of health and well-being, Haymovitz's primary concern is generating new ways to leverage lived experience to tell the stories that often go unheard at the population level so that decision-makers can better identify targeted solutions to problems resulting from systemic oppression. He has five years of experience in social work education and 20 years of professional experience in macro social work roles. He received his B.A. at Vassar College, his MS at Columbia, a DSW at Millersville, and completed a postdoc at Thomas Jefferson University Sidney Kimmel College of Medicine.
Adjunct Professor
Laurie Herzog is the director of the Advanced Clinical Supervision program as well as the Foundations of Clinical Supervision Certificate: Psychodynamic Supervision in a Multicultural Context at the Smith College School for Social Work. She earned her M.S.W. (1985) and her Ph.D. (1997) from Smith SSW. She began her career working in community mental health with young children and families, and later worked with adolescents and adults. Herzog currently maintains a private practice in Northampton, Massachusetts. In addition to providing psychotherapy services, she offers clinical consultation and supervision to doctoral candidates and to professional colleagues. For more than 20 years, Herzog has been a faculty field adviser and an adjunct professor at the Smith College School for Social Work, teaching in the Practice and Human Behavior in the Social Environment sequences, as well as in the Advanced Clinical Supervision Certificate. Herzog has also taught on the faculty of the Postgraduate Fellowship Program–West of the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Andrew Hoang is senior lecturer and programme director of the Bachelor of Arts and Sciences Programme at the University of Hong Kong. He is also senior tutor (pastoral care) at Chi Sun College, focusing on issues in the secondary-tertiary transition. His scholarship focuses on the interdisciplinary analysis of psychosocial interventions in education from perspectives in anthropology, sociology, philosophy and history. His academic advising is informed by clinical social work practices. He first joined SSW as a visiting international scholar in 2016. He currently teaches and coordinates the seminar on anti-racism in clinical social work practice.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
No biographic information is available.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Andrés Hoyos bring over two decades of clinical and administrative experience in the fields of mental health and social services working in private, public and non-profit sectors. Their expertise lie in the areas of direct clinical practice, program development, training and supervision through a social justice lens with particular emphasis on psychedelic integration psychotherapy, substance use, immigration, political asylum, trauma, and working with transgender, queer, lesbian, bisexual and gay communities. Hoyos have taught clinical social work practice, social work practice with immigrants and families, psychopathology-DSM 5, working with Spanish speaking Latino immigrant families, decolonizing social work and global mental health. They have provided faculty advising for over 10 years and have lectured nationally and internationally on issues of trauma, recovery and resilience, mental health and wellbeing, community organizing and advocacy. Hoyos provide integrative psychotherapy in their private practice in New York City and online, and currently provide training, participates in community organizing, and advocacy for diverse communities in Guatemala, Colombia and the US.
Adjunct Professor
Debra Hull began teaching research methods at Smith College SSW in the summer of 2013, and has been doing so ever since. During the school year she is professor of psychology at Bethany College in West Virginia where she teaches both clinical and research courses. Prior to Bethany, she served in the same capacity at Wheeling Jesuit University, also in West Virginia. As much as possible, she seeks to work with students on research projects and often presents with student coauthors. She has completed a number of site visits as an external reviewer, is a former EMT and first responder, and enjoys all kinds of crafts.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Leah Jikurashvili is a senior social worker and a psychodynamic psychotherapist specializing in transgender mental health, transgender aging, kink-aware sex therapy and existential issues such as death and dying. Jikurashvili’s work in end-of-life is deeply influenced by the psychoanalytic theory and narrative approaches to clinical practice. In addition, Jikurashvili has been actively involved in LGBTQ+ advocacy efforts in the Eastern European Region.
Jikurashvili’s research interest focuses on how transgender older adults' access to quality healthcare is impacted by various social forces that operate at the intersection of the aging process, transgender identity and immigration status. She has presented on the issue at several conferences in Europe and the USA.
Jikurashvili first joined SSW in 2022 and taught first-year theory courses. She currently teaches Theories for Clinical Social Work Practice and coordinates the course on Problems in Biopsychosocial Functioning.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Liz Joyce is a clinical social worker who has worked in schools for over fifteen years. Joyce earned a B.S. in human development and family studies from the University of Connecticut and a M.S.W. from Simmons University. Joyce’s first year placement at Simmons SSW was at the Carroll School and she has been practicing school social work ever since. Currently, Joyce is the school counselor at Nashoba Brooks School where she also chairs the Student Support Team, sits on the Inclusivity Leadership Team, and co-advises SAGA (Sexualities and Genders Alliance). Joyce is dedicated to creating and sustaining inclusive, relationally-based communities. In 2022, Joyce was a Global Action Research Collaborative fellow and presented her findings at the International Coalition of Girls Schools’s Global Forum. Her research focused on teaching skills to enable students to lean into difficult conversations. Joyce is beyond thrilled to be teaching at Smith this summer.
Adjunct Professor
Hugo Kamya earned his M.S.W. from Boston College and Ph.D. from Boston University. Since 2006, he has been a professor at Simmons University where he teaches research, clinical practice and trauma, family therapy, spirituality, group work, narrative practice and working with complex and diverse populations. He combines an interest in social work, psychology and theology. His research interests include qualitative research with immigrant and refugee populations, people affected by HIV/AIDS and youth involved in transactional sex. He collaborates in Caring Across Communities, a project of community-based services for refugees and immigrants that examines social, cultural, and human capital toward family functioning and well-being. He is the American Family Therapy Academy recipient for the 2003 Distinguished Contribution to Social and Economic Justice Award. Kamya is a Fulbright recipient, accepted into the Fulbright Specialist Roster Program in 2014-2019 and 2022-2025. Kamya is a founding member of the Boston Institute for Culturally Affirming Practices (BICAP).
Adjunct Associate Professor
Amber Kelly is an associate professor of social work within Quinnipiac University's School for Health Sciences, where she teaches from a trauma-informed framework across the practice spectrum. Her scholarship focuses on using trauma-informed clinical work and contemplative practices with survivors of both interpersonal and systemic violence, specifically working with currently and formerly incarcerated people. Kelly is active in her community including working with the Quinnipiac University Prison Project, teaching trauma-informed and mindfulness-based classes within Connecticut prisons, as well as several organizations working for social, political, and economic change to end mass incarceration. She also continues to maintain a small private practice, working with survivors of violence.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
No biographical information available.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
No biographic information is available.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Kurt Lebeck is a Ph.D. student & NIAAA fellow at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management. In addition to his position at Heller, Lebeck provides program development and consulting.
Presently he is implementing a program which targets recovery capital in the screening, assessment and support of clients with SUD. Other recent work includes the successful implementation of a Dual Diagnosis Capable Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. Lebeck’s research includes recovery capital, program development and quality improvement. He is particularly interested in evidence-based practices & policies that promote peer support work equity and social workers’ use of their lived experience.
Lebeck holds a M.S.W. from Smith and a BFA from the San Francisco Art institute. He completed clinical training at a Veterans hospital in MA and a CA arts program for teens. Prior to entering the behavioral health field, he founded a design and build business in Brooklyn, NY.
Adjunct Professor
Joan Lesser, Ph.D., LICSW
Adjunct Professor
Joan Lesser received her M.S.W. from Columbia University School of Social Work as a recipient of a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Psychiatric Training Grant. She received her Ph.D. from New York University School of Social Work. Lesser was the founder of Pioneer Valley Professionals, a multidisciplinary clinical practice in Holyoke, and she received the 2012 National Association of Social Workers, Massachusetts Chapter Award for “Greatest Contribution to Social Work Practice.” Lesser has taught in the masters and doctoral programs at Smith College School for Social Work and served as chair of social work practice in the M.S.W. program and coordinator of clinical training in the Ph.D. program. She has a private psychotherapy consultation practice in Longmeadow. Lesser is the co-author of two social work textbooks and numerous articles and book chapters and has presented locally, nationally and internationally on a variety of clinical topics.
Adjunct Associate Professor
No biographic information available.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
No biographical information available.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
No biographical information available.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Jackson Matos holds a master of arts inteaching from Smith College, MA State Licensure as a 5-12 ELA teacher, and a doctorate in education from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst with a concentration in social justice education.
Matos is an assistant professor in the department of psychology and education at Mount Holyoke College, where he also serves as the director of middle, secondary and the arts teacher licensure programs.
His research focuses on the role of equality and liberation in learning communities within two distinct areas. In the first area, Matos examines how Latinx student, family and community assets can be utilized to enhance the system of education in the U.S. In the second area, he examines the effect of social justice frameworks on pedagogy and policies. Matos is the author of La Familia: And Other Secret Ingredients to Latinx Student Success (Peter Lang).
Adjunct Professor
Patricia McManamy is a psychotherapist with ServiceNet in Northampton, Massachusetts, working with children, adolescents, families and adults, with a focus on trauma, adoption, child abuse and sexual behavior problems in children, as well as narrative, play and expressive arts therapies.
In addition to her practice, McManamy is the director of the Office of Counseling, Prevention and Victim Services at the Diocese of Springfield, Massachusetts, coordinating outreach, advocacy and therapeutic services to victims of clergy abuse. She also serves as an expert witness in child and family evaluations for the Committee for Public Counsel Services.
McManamy earned her M.S.W. at Smith College School for Social Work in 2000, and has taught theories of child development courses in the Human Behavior in the Social Environment Sequence since 2008.
Adjunct Professor
Lujuana Milton is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker (LICSW). She graduated with a B.A. and a M.S.W. degree from Boston College. With over 15 years of clinical experience in the field, she has worked in a number of settings integrating a number of approaches including CBT, TF CBT, psychodynamic and Afrocentric social work practice. Since 2013, she has owned and operated her own private group practice called South Shore Child and Family Counseling, LLC. Milton has also taught a number of clinical and macro courses in a number of graduate social work programs.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Cathleen Morey is the director of clinical social work at the Austen Riggs Center, an open setting psychiatric hospital and residential treatment center for adults with complex psychiatric problems. Morey has over 20 years of clinical social work practice experience in various mental health settings, including hospital and residential programs, community mental health agencies and forensic settings.
She earned her M.S.W. and Ph.D. from Smith College School for Social Work. Her scholarship, research and teaching are focused in the areas of system enactments, interdisciplinary treatment teams, family therapy, ethics in social work supervision and clinical social work practice and education. She has presented on these topics at national and international conferences. Morey is an adjunct assistant professor at the Smith College School for Social Work and the University of Connecticut School of Social Work. She has been a field instructor for M.S.W. interns from various social work schools, and she is an oral qualifying exam committee member for doctoral students at Smith College.
Morey also maintains a private practice in Stockbridge, MA, focusing on psychotherapy and consultation. She volunteers as a peer reviewer for Clinical Social Work Journal and is an international social work volunteer with the non-profit organization International Social Work Solutions.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Tamarah Moss is an assistant professor at the Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research at Bryn Mawr College. Her main research interests are threefold: 1) evaluation in community practice and health service delivery; 2) health equity among pregnant adolescents, LGBTQ+ and HIV positive communities; 3) international social work and social work education. Moss brings experience in culturally responsive and equitable evaluation, qualitative and mixed methodology, and public health social work.
During the Smith College School for Social Work summer program, Moss has experience teaching as an adjunct in Agency and Community Practice and Research Methods.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
No biographical information available.
Adjunct Professor
Adjunct Professor
Arden O’Donnell is an alum of the Smith College School for Social Work M.S.W. program and a current doctoral student at Boston University. She is a palliative care social worker by training and has more than 15 years’ experience in palliative care both nationally and internationally, beginning with her work with HIV/AIDS patients in the United States and in Africa.
O’Donnell is in the last year of the Ph.D. program; her dissertation focuses on social work’s role in the cultivation of prognostic awareness in patients with serious life-limiting illnesses. She is also doing research at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and looking at the impact of COVID-19 on adults living in public housing. She is the founder of Coalition for Courage, a nonprofit based in Zimbabwe that provides educational and psychosocial support for HIV orphans.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
No biographical information available.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Este Orantes Migoya (they/them) comes from a lineage of strong and resilient women and is the youngest of three siblings. Born in Ixim Ulew (Guatemala), Orantes Migoya and their family were displaced to Tkaronto as political refugees in the mid 1990s. These experiences lay the foreground for Orantes Migoya’s commitment to grassroots and community work and have nourished their two decades of experience working in social and environmental justice issues across Turtle Island and Abya Yala.
Orantes Migoya holds an MA in sociocultural anthropology with a specialization in development policy and power and they are currently working on a Ph.D. in sociocultural anthropology at the University of Toronto. Their research interests focus on the defense of territory and historic memory along the central corridor connecting Abya Yala from Mexico to Colombia. Their research and community work is complimented through ongoing collaboration with projects led by Indigenous and ancestral communities in Turtle Island, the highlands of Ixim Ulew and the Pacific Coast of the Chocó region.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
An alum of the Smith School for Social Work, Peters graduated from the M.S.W. program in 2015. Her goal has been to integrate her social work experience with her secondary school educator experience. She has served as an English teacher, director of advising, dean of students, school counselor, and had oversight over residential life at a boarding school in the South, where she also developed an advisory and peer mentoring program. She is currently a design team member for the Mastery School of Hawken in Cleveland, Ohio, which is set to open in August 2020. The school will take to scale a new model of education and engage in-depth with purpose and identity development in the educational environment.
Adjunct Professor
Nnamdi Pole is a professor in the Smith College Department of Psychology and licensed clinical psychologist. He has taught in the Smith School for Social Work since 2012.
Pole’s work includes research on trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder, especially among police officers and sexual assault survivors. He also has major interests in ethnic minority mental health, psychotherapy research and the psychophysiology of emotion.
Pole is the chair of the Smith College Institutional Review Board. Outside of the college, he serves as an associate editor of Psychological Bulletin and consulting editor of Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology. He formerly served on the board of directors of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies and the APA Trauma Division Executive Committee. He is a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Malcolm Pradia is a clinical social worker at the Center for Counseling and Psychological Health at his alma mater, the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Prior to joining UMass, Pradia worked as an inpatient social worker at The Brattleboro Retreat, a free standing psychiatric hospital in southern Vermont. Pradia has also worked in a public high school, co-leading a specialized transition program for students returning to school from therapeutic programs and out of district placements. Pradia's approach to individual and group practice is psychodynamic, and he is committed to dismantling systems of oppression in order to minimize suffering and enhance the opportunity for more peace.
Pradia received an M.S.W from the Smith College School for Social Work in 2013.
Adjunct Professor
Beth Prullage works at the University of Massachusetts Amherst at the Center for Counseling and Psychological Health as a psychiatric social worker and co-coordinator of the Groups Program. She is also part of the faculty of Re-Authoring Teaching, an online consultation group on narrative therapy, and has served as a bereavement group counselor with the LGBT Aging Project.
Prullage earned her M.S.W. at the Smith College School for Social Work in 2001. She has served as a field faculty adviser and has taught multiple courses, including: Family Therapy:
Narrative Approaches to Social Work, Group Theory and Practice, Social Work Practice for Individuals and Families, Family Theory, Dialogic, Feminist and Narrative Family Therapy and Couples Therapy.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Alexandra Klein Rafaeli is the coordinator of short-term, empirically supported treatments for the Psychological Services Division of Tel Aviv University. She is an adjunct instructor for the psychology department at IDC-Herzliya in Israel and does trainings internationally in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT). She has published theoretical articles and case studies of IPT therapy and is currently leading the development of an IPT-based protocol for university counseling centers.
At the SSW, Rafaeli has taught an elective course in Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT).
Adjunct Assistant Professor
No biographical information available.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Cristian Rangel is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Toronto. His scholarly interests include medical education, HIV/AIDS prevention, Canada’s gay Latino community and the HIV/AIDS vulnerability of immigrants.
Rangel’s current research looks at how physicians’ humanitarian and advocacy work for refugee care and non-status immigrants influence human rights and political discourse in Canada and Spain. At the University of Toronto, Rangel teaches Introduction to Research Methods, The Sociology of Medicine, Community and Policy and Sociology of Health Care.
Adjunct Associate Professor
Julieann Rapoport has found her vocation at the cross-section of education, social change and the social sector. For more than 30 years, Rapoport has worked with and learned from communities that have been marginalized, in the U.S. and abroad. She specializes in participatory methods of data collection and analysis to guide organizational and community assessments, planning processes, evaluation protocols and program design. She holds an undergraduate degree in psychology and sociology from Harvard University, a master's degree in bi-literacy and non-formal education from University of Massachusetts Amherst, and a certificate in Evaluation Practice from The Evaluators' Institute at George Washington University's Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration. At SSW, Rapoport teaches courses on macro-practice.
Adjunct Professor
Judith Rosenberger is a professor in the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College. Her areas of expertise include clinical practice, psychodynamic theories, clinical practice with diverse populations and co-occurring disorders. She is also a training analyst and senior supervisor with the Postgraduate Psychoanalytic Society and psychopathology faculty at the Chinese American Psychoanalytic Alliance. Her published work includes Relational Social Work Practice with Diverse Populations (editor) and Brief Case Studies in Abnormal Psychology (co-author). In addition to teaching, she has maintained a private practice for more than 40 years with a psychodynamic psychotherapy orientation. She is the director of the LMSW Examination Preparation program at Silberman/Hunter College School of Social Work, which provides training for over 600 students per year.
Adjunct Professor
Karen Saakvitne, Ph.D.
Adjunct Professor
Kay Saakvitne (Sock-quit-knee) is a licensed clinical psychologist who received her doctorate from the University of Michigan in 1986. She was the clinical director of the Traumatic Stress Institute in South Windsor CT for 13 years where, with Laurie Anne Pearlman, she wrote the two original books on vicarious traumatization: Trauma and the Therapist: Countertransference and Vicarious Traumatization in Psychotherapy with Incest Survivors and Transforming the Pain: A Workbook on Vicarious Traumatization. She is the lead author of Risking Connection, a training curriculum for working with survivors of childhood trauma and the author of its teaching manual, Relational Teaching, Experiential Learning. She has authored a parenting resource handbook, Support for Survivor Parents: Breaking the Cycle of Abuse One Day at a Time and numerous chapters and journal articles.
She is a Risking Connection faculty trainer and a nationally and internationally recognized expert in psychological trauma who has taught workshops and trainings to mental health professionals and offered clinical consultation to hundreds of clinicians for over 30 years. She has received awards for distinguished contribution to the practice of trauma psychology from both the Connecticut Psychological Association and the Division of Trauma Psychology of the American Psychological Association, in which she is a fellow. She is currently in private practice in Northampton, Massachusetts, offering psychotherapy and clinical consultation and has been on the faculty in the doctoral program at Smith School of Social Work since 2008.
Adjunct Associate Professor
No biographic information available.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Shalini Schaeffer has been working with families and children for the past 22 years of her professional tenure. Her heart beats for this work as she swims in and out of different narratives and navigates the ocean of life that is operating all around us. Presently, she is a program director at Good Shepherd Services in the Red Hook area of Brooklyn, New York, and has been there for the past 10 years. The program serves families where caregivers of a child under the age of 18 are provided family counseling free of charge, insurance, or the expectation of identifying whether they are documented citizens. The landscape of social work is inspiring and she is excited to continue her development as a student of the work wherever she has the opportunity to learn. For this she has infinite gratitude.
Adjunct Associate Professor
Shannon Sennott, a sex educator, gender justice activist, and LGBTQAI+ family therapist, earned her M.S.W. at the Smith College School for Social Work in 2008.
Sennott is the co-founder of Translate Gender, Inc. and the Center for Psychotherapy and Social Justice (CPSJ). She was clinically trained at SSW and the Eastern Group Psychotherapy Society in New York City, and is an AASECT certified sex therapist. Sennott maintains a private practice at the CPSJ and utilizes a transfeminist and dialogic therapeutic approach in her work with individuals, adolescents and families. Her specialization extends to working with couples, non-monogamous relationships and groups.
Included in her practice, Sennott offers clinical supervision, clinical training, and therapeutic intensives. She has also contributed numerous articles and chapters for publication and is co-author of the new clinical guide, Sex Therapy with Erotically Marginalized Clients: Nine Principles of Clinical Support published by Routledge Press.
Adjunct Associate Professor
Emily Sherwood has worked in healthcare and human services policy and program development for over 35 years. Her most recent role was deputy commissioner for Child, Youth and Family Services for the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health. She previously served as director of the Office of Behavioral Health at MassHealth (Medicaid) and the director of the Children’s Behavioral Health Initiative (CBHI) where she led the implementation of a statewide system of community-based services in response to the Rosie D. class action lawsuit.
She also has extensive experience in the Massachusetts legislature. As research director for the Health Care Finance Committee, she and her staff drafted the House version of Massachusetts’ landmark 2006 Health Care Reform legislation and staffed the Conference Committee between the House and Senate. Previously, she served as research director of the Joint Committee on Human Services and Elderly Affairs for seven years.
Adjunct Associate Professor
Davey Shlasko is the founder and director of Think Again Training & Consulting, a small consulting group that helps organizations address issues of justice, equity and inclusion through policy and structural interventions as well as professional development training.
An alum of Smith’s undergraduate program, Shlasko earned a master’s degree from UMass Amherst in social justice education. Shlasko worked for many years in direct service and supervision for human services, in the areas of health education, workforce development and leadership training. Publications include Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice (4th edition, forthcoming), Readings for Diversity and Social Justice (4th edition), and Trans Allyship Workbook.
At the Smith College School for Social Work, Shlasko teaches Sociocultural Concepts and Transgender Studies: Theory, Practice & Advocacy, and served as a Sotomayor Fellow for three years from 2017 through 2019.
Adjunct Associate Professor
LaTasha Smith is a professor in the M.S.W. program at Fairfield University where she teaches social justice, assessment and fieldwork. She has also taught Clinical Case Evaluation (research) and Advanced Clinical Practice as an adjunct at Columbia University School for Social Work, as well as a course on mental health to medical school students at Universal Global Health Equity in Rwanda. Her current research is on internalized racial oppression and mental health from the perspective of African American women clinicians.
Before her academic positions, Smith worked in a variety of clinical settings including outpatient, inpatient and hospital. She also has advanced training in group psychotherapy as a certified group psychotherapist and throughout her career, has consistently worked with survivors of trauma (childhood and adult). She currently has an online private practice in New York and Connecticut.
At Smith College School for Social Work, Smith was a Sotomayor Fellow for two years and currently teaches Clinical Social Work Practice, Evidence Based Practice and Perspectives on Transference and Countertransference.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Rhoda Smith is a doctoral candidate in social policy and social research at Loma Linda University as well as the Smith College School for Social Work’s 2016-2017 Bertha Capen Reynolds Predoctoral Fellow. Her research interests include mental and maternal health and wellbeing for children in the child welfare system, especially foster youth. Before starting the Reynolds fellowship, she was a lecturer in Azusa Pacific University’s M.S.W. program and the coordinator for the University Consortium for Children and Families, a partnership between the LA County DCF and social work schools in Los Angeles. Smith’s career has included extensive experience in the field of child welfare, including work as a social worker and supervisor, recruiter of staff and foster parents, and consultant to group homes for pregnant and parenting teens in foster care.
Adjunct Professor
After graduating from the Smith College School for Social Work M.S.W. program, Stefanie Speanburg went on to earn a doctorate in women’s, gender and sexuality studies at Emory University, focusing on women with borderline personality disorder. She has a private practice in Atlanta, Georgia, working with individuals and couples, as well as therapists and other helping professionals and teaches at Emory University.
Speanburg has served as a research adviser for Smith master’s students since 2005, and has been part of the adjunct faculty since 2015, teaching Comparative Psychodynamic Theories for Social Work Practice and Introduction to Theories of Human Behavior.
Adjunct Professor
Ruth Spencer is an adjunct professor with a long history with SSW. She teaches courses that address the intersection of law and social work practice. She teaches Practice Skills in Agency Settings, focusing on defensive clinical practice, ethics, and supervision. She is a family therapist, working in inpatient, outpatient and private practice in mental health settings. She practiced family and mental health law at Legal Aid. Spencer is now a consultant for higher education institutions focusing on labor and employment law and has been the chief human resources officer at Vassar and Oberlin Colleges. She earned her B.A. from Oberlin College, M.S.S.A., and J.D. from Case Western Reserve University. Her community work has been as a board of trustee member on local and national advocacy and social service organizations. She is the co-author of an article in the 2017 Smith College Studies in Social Work. She is currently working on a chapter on the concept of consent for a mental health policy publication.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Amanda Sposato (she/they), a 2016 graduate of Smith’s M.S.W. program, works as a contemporary relational psychodynamic psychotherapist and clinical supervisor in community mental health and private practice. Sposato’s clinical practice specializes in therapy for fellow therapists, addressing complex trauma and emotional neglect, and working with the queer, interpersonally-anarchistic and creative communities. Prior to Smith, Sposato accumulated years of experience working in various direct clinical mental health positions.
Sposato has advanced training in contemporary relational psychodynamic psychotherapy and EFT, is currently enrolled in certificate programs in Advanced Relational Studies (The Stephen Mitchell Relational Study Center) and Advanced Clinical Supervision (Smith), and is in clinical supervision with Dr. Deborah Waxenberg.
Sposato’s academic interests include the use of relational enactments in social work pedagogy and praxis, radical playfulness, vitality's relationship to temporality, abolitionist social work, and the impact of internalized class bias on relationship-building.
Outside of clinical practice, Sposato works as a musician.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
No biographical information available.
Adjunct Professor
Rosemary Sullivan completed her doctorate at the Smith College School for Social work in 2009. She is an assistant professor of social work at Westfield State University, primarily teaching in the HBSE sequence and diversity and social justice classes.
Sullivan’s research and teaching interests include identity development among trans people, mandated treatment of family violence offenders, integrating trauma theory into clinical practice, utilizing forensic evaluation techniques in cases of suspected child abuse and social worker preparation for expert witness testimony in criminal and civil trials.
Before completing her Ph.D. she worked as a victim advocate in residential treatment programs with adolescent girls with severe emotional and behavioral problems, as a group therapist for male batterers and for women in substance abuse treatment programs.
At SSW, Sullivan has taught Developmental Deviations in Childhood and Adolescence, Crisis Intervention and Problems in Biopsychosocial Functioning, Child Development and has served as a thesis adviser.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Alison Sutton-Ryan is a clinical assistant professor in social work at Salisbury University. She has over 25 years clinical psychotherapy experience in a variety of settings with specialization in addictions/recovery, perinatal mood disorders, integrated care and mental health of healthcare providers. She has maintained a private practice for over 18 years. She was previously the director of mental health for University of Arizona College of Medicine, Health Sciences, and Veterinary Medicine. She received a doctorate in behavioral health from Arizona State. She has a post-graduate certificate from University of Tennessee in veterinary social work. She is a proud 1998 graduate of Smith College School for Social Work. She is currently completing a fellowship addressing integrated care and experience of transgender individuals. She lives in Tucson, Arizona with her partner and two adult children and a pack of rescue dogs.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Tanita Cox Teagle is a 1999 graduate of the Smith College SSW M.S.W. program. She currently serves as a faculty field advisor for the M.S.W. program. Teagle is a public servant with the state of Georgia and serves as a commissioner for the city of Carrollton Parks and Recreation Department.
Teagle's career encompasses work in mental health, addictive disease and disability services. She has held various leadership positions in public and private social service agencies, and currently works for the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities while maintaining a private practice and consulting business.
Teagle's research interests include kinship care and Employee Assistance Program (EAP) effectiveness.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
No biographical information available.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Annette-Carina van der Zaag is a senior lecturer in humanities at Erasmus University College, Rotterdam. She also teaches the Sexuality Seminar in the Critical Studies Department at the Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam. Her research interests center around the materiality of bodies as sites of power, transformation and rupture – often with specific attention to HIV. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Goldsmiths (2013) and worked as a researcher and lecturer in London (Psychosocial Studies Department, Birkbeck) before recently moving to the Netherlands. She is the author of Materialities of Sex in a Time of HIV: The Promise of Vaginal Microbicides. Other writing has been published in philoSOPHIA, the Journal of Visual Culture, Feminist Review and the Journal of Science and Technology Studies. Throughout her academic research she has worked as an artist in sculptural textile design and continues to be engaged in artistic methodologies to enable bodies to speak to the unspeakable.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
No biographical information available.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
No biographic information available.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Simon Weismantel is a clinical social worker, consultant and educator who maintains a private practice in the Chicago area. They focus on addressing arrests in psychological development through psychodynamic treatments—primarily using self psychology and relational theories. Their clinical specialty focuses on minoritized genders, sexual orientations and atypical sexual practices—with an understanding of related attachment traumas and structural oppressions.
Prior to their social work career, Weismantel was a nationally-recognized advocate for social justice causes utilizing communications strategies, policymaking and community education and organizing. Weismantel received his B.A. from Smith College in 1999, and his M.S.W. from Smith’s School for Social Work in 2014. They have completed a post-graduate fellowship at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. At Smith SSW, Weismantel teaches Comparative Psychodynamic Theories for Clinical Social Work Practice and an elective course on working in an effective and affirming way with transgender clients.
Adjunct Professor
Kurt L. White is the vice president of Outpatient services at the Brattleboro Retreat, a private non-profit psychiatric hospital founded in 1834. He is a clinical social worker by training, and he continues to practice with individuals, families, and groups in addition to his other duties. White has been a field supervisor at Smith SSW since 2006, and has been involved with classroom teaching in the summer program since 2010. He is a fellow of the American Group Psychotherapy Association, and is recognized as a Master Addiction Counselor by NAADAC -the organization for addiction professionals. He is a past president of the Vermont Association of Addiction Treatment Providers. His interests include group psychotherapy, psychodynamic theory and practice, anti-oppression practice in clinical and agency settings, addiction and co-occurring issue and the emerging field of psychedelic psychotherapy.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Di Yoong is currently a Ph.D. candidate at The Graduate Center (CUNY). Broadly, they are interested in how identities move beyond just representations, and how they are negotiated through nationalism, transnationalism and diasporic discourses. Currently, they are working on several projects that consider how these relationships are mediated through social media and other online platforms, including in alt-right spaces, K-pop/Hallyu communities, and Boys Love (BL) communities. Thinking through the affordances of online platforms, they investigate how structures of power, such as racism, translates and mutates. They are particularly interested in how queer and trans Asian (Americans) experience these spaces, especially given the rise of Asian American hate crimes. With their interest in digital spaces, they are also invested in the discussions of ethics in computational social science, digital humanities, and public humanities projects, especially as it relates to underserved communities.