Janae Peters, M.S.W., LMSW

An alum of the Smith School for Social Work, Peters graduated from the M.S.W. program in 2015. Her professional and personal focus has been on understanding how to systemically maximize learning, growth, wellness, and right relationships for individuals and especially for the larger communities she has been a part of. Her goal has been to integrate her clinical social work experiences with her secondary school educator and mentorship experiences to experiment with cultural transformation at all levels. She has served as an English literature teacher, director of advising, dean of students, dean of student development and community life, school counselor, had oversight over residential life, developed advisory and peer mentoring programs, served as an consultant on equity in workplaces and organizations, and been a founding faculty member of a school that takes to scale a new model of education and engages in-depth with purpose and identity development in the educational environment.

Smith’s anti-racism work played a large role in her decision to apply to the M.S.W. program and that influenced her eagerness to collaborate with others through the Marta Sotomayor fellowship. Her engagement with the Priorities and Anti-Racism Planning Group (ARPG) committees at SSW over the past few years has strengthened her eagerness to support transformation in this community. Consideration of liberation, intersectionality and person-in-environment theories is crucial to her work with and support of people and she is curious about what it really takes for communities to shift.