Sawyer Hogenkamp

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Sawyer completed an M.Ed. in Human Development and Psychology at Harvard University. He also holds a M.Ed. and B.Ed. from Queen’s University, and B.A. from University of Waterloo, majoring in Music, and Human Geography & Environmental Management. He is pursuing a PhD to further the study of relational youth violence and school climate to encompass under-supervised contexts within and outside of school grounds, such as in neighborhoods, virtual spaces, or on school buses. He serves as a consultant with an organization in Canada that trains school bus drivers on bullying prevention and mental health awareness. He’s also engaged in supporting social emotional learning in underserved populations domestically (urban and rural America), and abroad (urban and rural China). Research skills include both qualitative and quantitative analysis as well as mixed methods, having participated with interdisciplinary research groups collaborating with Canadian Federal and Provincial Government Agencies, Universities, and private organizations. Currently Sawyer is working with the APA Taskforce on Violence Against Educators, organizing and analyzing data and policy of qualitative data from school psychologists, social workers, counselors, administrators, teachers, and school staff.

Chaoyue Wu

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Chaoyue Wu is a doctoral candidate in Social Welfare. She graduated with her LL.B. in social work from Beijing Institute of Technology and her M.A. in social policy from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Chaoyue’s research focuses on addressing school violence and creating a safe educational environment for all school community members. Positioned at the intersection of social work, education, public health and psychology, her work investigates the social-ecological risk factors related to various forms of school violence including violence against students, educators, and school personnel as well as the consequences for victims’ well-being. By informing evidence-based policies and interventions, her research has supported legislative efforts related to educator training and school-based mental health programs.

Chaoyue’s dissertation represents groundbreaking research in school violence prevention, being among the first studies to use large-scale data and advanced statistical approach to examine violence against teaching assistants and pupil personnel workers. Although often marginalized in school hierarchies, these under-researched groups play essential roles in supporting student learning, mental health, and school operations. Based on social-ecological framework and using samples from national survey, her multi-manuscript dissertation employs machine learning and structural equation modeling to investigate how social-ecological factors affect violence against these staff members and how school climate factors mediate the impacts of external and organizational factors on violence. This dissertation was funded by the UCLA Dissertation Year Award.

Chaoyue has an outstanding publishing record as a highly motivated Ph.D. student. Since beginning her doctoral studies in 2020, she has published 11 peer-reviewed journal articles in prestigious journals including the Journal of School Violence, Child Abuse & Neglect, and Journal of Affective Disorders. She has presented her research at academic conferences such as the Society for Social Work Research (SSWR), the American Educational Research Association (AERA), and the World Anti-Bullying Forum. She has also established research collaborations with scholars at institutions such as UC Berkeley, UNC Chapel Hill, The Ohio State University, Rutgers University, DePaul University, Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Chinese University of Hong Kong on research projects that span both national and international contexts.

In addition to research, Chaoyue demonstrates strong commitment to teaching. She has served as a Teaching Assistant (2021-2022), Teaching Associate (2023-2024), and Teaching Fellow (2025) at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs, teaching both undergraduate and graduate courses spanning research methods, statistics, child development theory, public policy, leadership (Online), and school safety practice.

Ron Avi Astor

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Ron Avi Astor holds the Marjorie Crump Chair Professorship in Social Welfare at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs with a joint appointment in the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. His work examines the role of the physical, social-organizational and cultural contexts in schools related to different kinds of bullying and school violence (e.g., sexual harassment, cyber bullying, discrimination hate acts, school fights, emotional abuse, weapon use, teacher/child violence). This work documents the ecological influences of the family, community, school and culture on different forms of bullying and school violence. This work has been used worldwide. Astor’s studies have included tens of thousands of schools and millions of students, teachers, parents and administrators. Over the past 20 years, findings from these studies have been published in more than 200 scholarly manuscripts.

Along with his colleague Rami Benbenishty, Astor developed a school mapping and monitoring procedure that is used “at scale” regionally and with local students and teachers to generate “grassroots” solutions to safety problems. The findings of these studies have been widely cited in the international media, in the United States, and Israel.

Astor’s work has won numerous international research awards from the Society for Social Work Research, the American Psychological Association, the American Educational Research Association, the Military Child Educational Coalition and other research organizations. He has an honorary doctorate from Hebrew Union College. Astor is a fellow of APA, AERA, and an elected member of the National Academy of Education and American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare.

His work has been funded by the Department of Defense Educational Activity, National Institutes of Mental Health, H.F. Guggenheim Foundation, National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation, William T. Grant Foundation, Israeli Ministry of Education, a Fulbright Senior Scholar Fellowship, University of Michigan, USC and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and other foundations.