Dear CSSW Community,
I am delighted to announce that we are ready to welcome a new member to our faculty. Dr. Nkemka Anyiwo will join us as an Assistant Professor of Social Work starting July 1, 2022.
Dr. Anyiwo completed both her Master’s degree in Social Work and her PhD in Social Work and Developmental Psychology at the University of Michigan. She is currently completing the second year of a three-year post-doctoral fellowship in the Division of Human Development and Quantitative Methods at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. Dr. Anyiwo will be the first hire in a cluster of new faculty engaged in scholarship on the well-being of Black American families, an effort for which CSSW has received invaluable supplemental support from the Office of the Provost.
The primary focus of Dr. Anyiwo’s work rests on the sociocultural factors that promote the resilience and empowerment of Black youth. She studies the influence of media and sociocultural factors that shape the construction of Black youth’s racial identities and their sociopolitical development. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the Ford Foundation. Dr. Anyiwo is a very strong proponent of the principle that this work should be done in collaboration with youth and their communities. Her studies tie together how Black youth make meaning of racial inequity, the strategies they employ to promote racial justice, and the implications of their beliefs and behaviors on their psychological and academic outcomes.
I’d like to express my profound gratitude to the faculty search committee for their exceptional work in identifying and recruiting such fantastic candidates this year. Please join me in thanking Professors Craig Schwalbe (Chair), Carmela Alcántara, Louisa Gilbert, Jinyu Liu, Julien Teitler (ex officio), Jane Waldfogel, and Samantha Winter for their time and wisdom.
Please join me in extending a warm welcome to Dr. Anyiwo!
Best,
Melissa