PhD Current Student Bios
2025 Doctoral Candidates Seeking Academic Appointment
The USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work is pleased to share the background and key research interests of some of our PhD students. Click on a name to view that student's biographical sketch.
Lucinda Adjesiwor, MSW
Professional and research interests: child and family welfare; childhood adversity/trauma; maltreatment; behavioral health; parenting; family-support interventions; racial and ethnic minority groups.
Ronna Bañada, LCSW, MSW
Professional and research interests: mental health; undocumented immigrant experiences; Asian Pacific Islander Desi American (APIDA) communities and ethnic identity.
Alexander Black, ACSW, MSW
Professional and research interests: promoting positive youth development; sports social work; treatment of developmental trauma; impact of interpersonal relationships on development; psychoeducation for administrators; reducing mental health disparities through community-based research interventions.
John Bunyi, MFT
Professional and research interests: the application of mental health technologies for increasing access to and effectiveness of mental health care for historically marginalized populations; reducing barriers to mental health care for immigrant populations; Filipinx mental health; leveraging big data in mental health care; dissemination and implementation of innovative mental health treatment delivery; mental health treatment for those with disabilities.
Liv Canning, BA (they/them)
Professional and research interests: the utilization of community-based participatory research and mindfulness-based interventions for survivors of sexual assault and within restorative justice contexts.
Seo-Yun Choi, MSW
Professional and Research Interests: immigrants' connections and roles to local communities and the cognitive and social health outcomes; research on community building to promote strong healthy connectivity; understanding social dynamics within senior housing, especially on social isolation among them; investigating the health effects of interactions with external communities for senior housing residents.
Xiangyu (Geoffrey) Cui, MA
Professional and research interests: access to healthcare among unsheltered/unhoused population; healthcare workers’ attitude toward homelessness; The intersection of individual psychology, group dynamics, and organizational change, particularly in the context of healthcare and social work aimed at marginalized communities.
Vanessa Goncalves, LSW, MSW
Professional and research interests: exploring the culture and climate within U.S. military and veteran populations, with a strong focus on suicide prevention, substance abuse, mental health stigma, and policy implementation. The research is particularly dedicated to suicide prevention among active service members, aiming to identify contributing factors, improve intervention strategies, and reduce mental health stigma in military culture.
Nicole Haseman, MSW
Professional and research interests: community-based participatory research interventions focused on injury prevention among individuals experiencing homelessness and criminal justice system involvement.
Sierra Hendrix-Williams, MSW
Professional and research interests: combating mental health stigma in the Black community through sports by focusing on preventative interventions for youth student-athletes.
Maiya Hotchkiss, BA (they/them)
Professional and research interests: health and safety disparities, particularly among trans and gender nonconforming (TGNC) individuals; interpersonal and structural violence; violence prevention and recovery; community-facilitated evidence-based interventions; community-based participatory research (CBPR) methods.
Olga Koumoundouros, MFA
Professional and research interests: utilization of evidenced-based policies for violence prevention, intersecting kinds of violence, intersecting kinds of coping, participatory action research, survivor centered voice, trauma informed research models, mixed methods photo voice, health disparity, trauma informed public schools, juvenile justice, community-based environmental justice, engagement as healing practice, community equity, housing justice, low-income communities, guaranteed basic income programs.
Chaejeong Lee, MSW
Professional and research interests: impact of employment status on mental health and health disparities. Role of social support in addressing the consequences of employment-related inequities on health outcomes. Social determinants of health; socioeconomic status; job insecurity; mental health; access to care; social isolation and loneliness; meaning of work; policy implementation.
Peichen Liu, MSW
Professional and research interests: homelessness, housing policy, supportive housing system, tenant experience in supportive housing system, ethnic minority experience of homelessness and shelter system, housing first model, mixed method research.
Leticia Morales, MSW
Professional and research interests: Latino/a youth, mixed-status families, deportation, and family separation.
Kiana Naimi, LCSW, MSW
Professional and research interests: children with special healthcare needs; family resilience; parenting; maternal/paternal mental health and wellbeing, post-traumatic growth (PTG); exploration of evidence-based programs and policies for child and family well-being within various domains of society.
Meghana Nallajerla, BA
Professional and research interests: collective trauma and the psychosocial impacts of disaster (climate change, conflict, COVID-19, systemic oppression), especially among racially/ethnically marginalized groups. Community resilience, healing, and community-based mental health interventions. Transformative and restorative justice interventions, community organizing, and social justice movements. Participatory action research, policy, global mental health.
Juyoung Park, MSG
Professional and research interests: gerontological social work research; community-based participatory research; minority aging; older immigrants; mixed methods; social isolation; elder mistreatment; mental health.
Aubrey Sutherland, MSW
Professional and research interests: assessment of culture/climate within the United States military and veteran populations with a focus on socialization and behavior; military sexual trauma (MST); sexual harassment; mental health stigma; policy implementation; perception of women; gender bias; United States military and veteran transition.
Tamera Whitesides, LCSW, MSW
Professional and research interests: utilization of evidence-based practices in child welfare; attachment and treatment of developmental trauma; interpersonal neurobiology; parenting and intergenerational trauma transmission; mindfulness-based interventions; secondary trauma for social workers in child welfare.
Corinne Zachry, MA
Professional and research interests: understanding and alleviating mental health inequities for LGBTQ+ people; identifying mechanisms underlying unmet need for mental health services; contributions of social stressors to health disparities for individuals with multiple marginalized identities, promotion of LGBTQ+ health equity.