News Archive
Students
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The USC PhD Achievement Awards recognize six doctoral candidates, and their primary faculty advisor, from across the university, with exceptional academic profiles. Among the recipients for 2025 are PhD candidate Lucinda Adjesiwor and Associate Professor Julie Cederbaum of the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work.
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In the 2023-2024 season, the USC Trojan Boxing Club had five athletes on the winner’s podium at the U.S. Intercollegiate Boxing Association (USIBA) National Championships, including the award for Best Male Boxer of the Tournament. It also produced USC’s first ever National Collegiate Boxing Association (NCBA) champion, Jordan King, a business administration major at USC Marshall School of Business. King received The John J. Fitzpatrick 2024 Most Outstanding Boxer Male award for his performance at the NCBA championships.
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When Cat Birkenfeld, BA ’23, was a child, she passed a juvenile detention camp on her way to school every day. She remembers peppering her mother with questions about why those kids were there. The bridge between their experiences seemed to her both insurmountably vast and also merely a matter of chance.
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Exercise and team sports have been proven to provide clear mental health benefits according to numerous studies. For some athletes who reach an elite level, sports can also be an opportunity to gain an educational scholarship and degree, or help lift their families out of poverty. Yet, despite these benefits, elite collegiate athletes display higher risk for anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation than their peers.
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Social work doctoral graduates awarded prestigious postdoc fellowships for novel research approachesAcademia can be a competitive landscape, but for two doctoral candidates completing their PhD studies in May 2024 at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, it has been an opportunity to lift each other up. The educational journeys of Adriane Clomax (she/her) and Rory O’Brien (they/them) mirrored each other as recipients of the Oakley Fellowship endowed by the USC Provost. Only eight such fellowships are awarded to PhD candidates university-wide each year.
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Rebekah Edmondson says it was her duty to support the members of a specially trained unit she worked alongside during her multiple deployments to Afghanistan.
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After a decade working in child development, Nidia Sanguino-Gonzalez realized she had gone as far in her career as she could without a master’s degree. The early educator, mental health advocate and mother of four gave herself three years to get into the right school at the right price for her family. Her top choice was the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, and she was thrilled to receive an acceptance letter. But could she afford it?
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For 13 years, Regina Nadir has worked for the District of Columbia Public Schools — as a school social worker, dean, director of climate and culture, and now as a district-level social worker providing programming for special education students, and working with the families of students at private, religious and nonpublic facilities.
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In September 2020, Caris Berndt, a Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) student at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, found herself at Eielson Air Force Base located 25 miles outside Fairbanks, Alaska. Her husband, an elite F-35 pilot, was stationed there in the 355th fighter squadron of the U.S. Air Force.
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In 2022, approximately 2.9 million Californians had a substance use disorder (SUD), yet only about 10% received treatment, driven in part by a statewide shortage of SUD counselors.