Faculty

Faculty September 16, 2025

From Courtrooms to Classrooms: Ruth Spencer’s Social Work Journey

Ruth Spencer J.D., M.S.S.A., L.I.S.W., can’t quit the Smith College School for Social Wo…

Ruth Spencer in the classroom

Faculty March 31, 2025

National Center for Mental Health Award: Ora Nakash Helping to Expand Access to Care

Professor Ora Nakash is an expert in creating provider interventions to improve the qualit…

Ora Nakash speaking holding a mic with wood paneling behind

Faculty March 17, 2025

Turning Rejections into Research Wins: Professor Kenta Asakura Receives Award

Resident professor Kenta Asakura, M.S.W. ’04, received the 2024 Best Research Note…

Kenta Asakura smiles at the camera.

Faculty March 12, 2025

Ora Nakash Receives Grant to Advance Equity in Postpartum Mental Health Care

Professor Ora Nakash and her colleague at Rutgers University, Christina Kang-Yi, were rece…

Faculty October 10, 2024

Championing Accessibility: Brittany Brathwaite

Brittany Brathwaite, M.S.W., M.Ph. candidate, and adjunct assistant professor, received th…

Brittany Brathwaite, 2024 Laura Rauscher Teaching Award winner

Faculty October 10, 2023

Simulation Gets Real at SSW

When Kenta Asakura, M.S.W. ’07, Ph.D., joined the SSW faculty in 2022, he came wit…

Katya Cerar, Arianne Napier-White, Kenta Asakura standing together in front of a brick

Faculty October 10, 2023

Seeds of Peace: Marsha Kline Pruett

In another life, says Marsha Kline Pruett, Ph.D., she would have been Oscar Hammerstein. T…

Marsha Kline Pruett wearing purple shirt and blue striped scarf smiling with white background

Faculty July 24, 2023

New Book: Psychosocial Responses to Sociopolitical Targeting, Oppression and Violence

Professor Emeritus Joshua Miller published a new book aimed at helping clinicians begin de…

The exterior of Nielson Library and one of its "jewel boxes" on the Smith College campus.

Faculty March 11, 2023

Shooting for the Moon: Solving the Crisis of Children's Mental Health

More and more children in the U.S. are ending up in emergency rooms because of mental heal…

Professor Hannah Karpman smiles at the camera. She is wearing a blue top and her shoulder length brown hair is down.

Faculty March 08, 2023

Working to Support Families: Professor Marsha Kline Pruett

Professor Marsha Kline Pruett, M.S., M.S.L., Ph.D., ABPP, a specialist in co-parenting and family development who describes her focus as “a broader, more inclusive view of family structures,” has been busily working on building and growing tools and interventions focused on family systems dynamics.

Marsha Kline Pruett stands in front of a blackboard with a diagram reading parent 1, parent 2, child drawn on it.