Kate Watson

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Kate Watson is a doctoral candidate in Social Welfare at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. She researches childhood trauma and well-being from an ecological perspective and using qualitative and quantitative methods. Her interests include trauma-informed approaches in settings, including child welfare and schools.  

Kate earned a Master of Social Welfare (MSW) with a concentration in Social and Economic Justice from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from American University in Washington, D.C. A passionate advocate for children and youth, Kate has served on the boards of Child Advocates of Silicon Valley and the Los Angeles Junior Chamber of Commerce, as chair of the LAJCC Foundation, and as a court-appointed special advocate (CASA) for foster youth.

ResearchGate Link here.

Website: https://www.krwatson.com

Chaoyue Wu

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Chaoyue Wu is a doctoral student 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. Her research interests include school violence, perpetration and victimization, mental and behavioral health, and quantitative research methods.

Before joining the PhD program at the Luskin School of Public Affairs, she worked as a research assistant on diverse projects in different Chinese societies (Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan), examining the risk factors for violence involvement and the negative impacts of victimization experience on mental and behavioral health among marginalized children and adolescents.

Judith L. Perrigo

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Judith (Judy) Perrigo is an Assistant Professor in the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs Social Welfare Department. Additionally, she serves as the Research Director for the Data Informed Futures (DIF) project at the UCLA Center for Healthier Children, Families, and Communities and assumes the role of Social Work Training Director within the UCLA Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (LEND) clinic. Drawing from over two decades of clinical experience working with children and families in Los Angeles County, her scholarship and teaching revolve around prevention and early intervention (PEI) strategies aimed at addressing societal challenges, particularly those impacting early childhood.

 

Dr. Perrigo specializes in advancing holistic wellbeing for young children aged birth to 5 years. Her research encompasses various facets of early childhood, including mental health, socio-emotional development, early educational experiences, access to public services, and economic security. Her overarching objective is to identify both protective and risk factors contributing to childhood wellbeing, such as systemic challenges like socioeconomic and ethnoracial disparities and inequities. She approaches this goal through the lens of equitable PEI strategies and utilizes a range of research methodologies, including qualitative, mixed-methods, and quantitative approaches, thoughtfully selected to align with the unique demands of each research inquiry.

 

Her research agenda can be divided into two primary streams. The first focuses on transforming early childhood ecosystems, while the second delves into the impact of policies on families with young children facing poverty and material hardships. Among Dr. Perrigo’s ongoing research projects is a series of descriptive studies examining holistic wellbeing trends among kindergarten populations across the United States. These studies encompass facets such as physical and mental health, socio-emotional skills, and cognitive development. Another notable project is a multi-year, randomized controlled trial testing the impacts of guaranteed income receipt on early childhood development and various aspects of material hardship and poverty. Additionally, Dr. Perrigo is involved in research examining the experiences of young neurodivergent children within medical, mental health, and educational systems.

 

Dr. Perrigo is also deeply committed to collaborating with and serving communities to tackle local, social needs that can be explored through research. A key facet of her commitment lies in making sure that research findings are strengths-oriented, culturally humble, and accessible to a broad range of audiences. Support for her work comes from the Society for Research in Child Development, First 5 Orange County, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the Council on Social Work Education, and Los Angeles County.

 

In addition to her scholarship, Dr. Perrigo places a strong emphasis on engaging and mentoring student research collaborators. She teaches courses on social welfare practice and infant and early childhood mental health. Her teaching approach highlights the historical and structural forces that underlie both oppression and opportunity. Through her collaborative guidance, students develop practical, meaningful, and pertinent knowledge and skills that resonate within the realm of social justice and welfare.

Tranishia James

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Tranishia James is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. Her interests are in cultural issue, eliminating racial disproportionately and disparity in the child welfare system, trauma informed social work practice and assisting at-risk adolescents with attaining higher education. 

 

As a Practicum Education Consultant with the California Social Work Education (Cal-SWEC) program, Tranishia works with first and second year students training them to become professional public child welfare social workers and is involved in recruiting child welfare candidates. 

 

Prior to coming to UCLA, Tranishia worked with children and families in L.A. County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) for 10 1/2 years. She was a supervisor in Emergency Response (child abuse investigations); as well as a Coach Developer, teaching skills development trainings for Supervisors and Children’s Social Workers. While at DCFS, Tranishia also worked as a Practicum Instructor training/supervising UCLA and USC social work interns. 

Jihyun Oh

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Jihyun Oh earned her BA in Social Welfare at the Catholic University of Korea, her MA in Social Welfare at Seoul National University, and her MSW at the University of Washington (UW), Seattle. Prior to entering the UCLA doctoral program, in 2006-2011, she worked for various projects regarding measuring national minimum cost of living and producing Korean Welfare Panel Study data in the Division of Basic Social Security Research at the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs (a government-funded think tank). After completing her MSW, in 2017-2018, she interned in Partners for Our Children (UW-affiliated child welfare research center) in Seattle. Drawing on her research and practicum experiences in both Seoul and Seattle, Jihyun’s main research interest is child welfare and its association with relevant factors from both institutional and intergenerational contexts including parenting quality. Through her doctoral study at UCLA, Jihyun hopes to develop more comprehensive and systematic analysis that can contribute to improvements in child support policy and practice.

Stephanie Kathan

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Stephanie Kathan (née Thorne) is a third year Social Welfare PhD student at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. Stephanie earned her Master of Science in Social Work with a concentration in Administration and Policy Practice from the University of Texas at Austin and her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology with a minor in Sexuality Studies from the University of California at Davis. She has worked with children and families in diverse environments for several years, including providing equine therapy, volunteering at a crisis nursery, providing tutoring services, completing family assessments, and in social work case management. Additionally, Stephanie has experience in developmental psychology research and child welfare research. Before starting at UCLA, Stephanie was a Research Associate at a state-wide Texas child placing agency. Stephanie’s research interests include foster care systems and child development improvements within multi-generational early childhood interventions. Stephanie is a member of the National Association of Social Workers and the Eta Tau chapter of Phi Alpha, the Social Work Honor Society.

Shannon L. Dunlap

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Shannon’s research is interdisciplinary and centers on adolescent and family development, mental health, stress and support. Her mixed-methods dissertation uses a life history calendar qualitative approach to interview transgender adolescent-parent dyads to explore their stress and support experiences across the adolescent life-span. Additionally, her dissertation includes a quantitative survey to further describe adolescent and parent perceptions of current adolescent psychological distress and school experiences. This research is important because it explores the role of parent- adolescent stress and support for adolescent gender identity development and affirmation.

Shannon earned her MSW from the University of Southern California and spent the 8 years prior to her doctoral training as a clinical social worker with children, families and adolescents. Specifically, she has worked as a clinical social worker within the field of child-adolescent mental health, LGBT adolescent mental health and youth HIV. During her PhD training, Shannon coordinated multiple research projects which included developing research protocols, collecting both quantitative and qualitative data and grant writing. Shannon has developed expertise in qualitative methodology and analysis, family mental health and qualitative dyadic analysis. Shannon used her clinical social work and research experiences within her teaching. During her doctoral education, she taught both MSW and Public Affairs undergraduate courses including human behavior, child and adolescent psychopathology and research methods.

Shannon received funding for her work from the American Psychological Foundation Roy Scrivner Memorial Research Grant and a National Research Service Award (NRSA) F31 predoctoral fellowship from NICHD. Shannon’s funding enabled her to expand her work to explore transgender adolescent-parent stress and support outside the contexts of her dissertation. During her doctoral studies and through her F31, she has collaborated with and been mentored by scholars across multiple institutions including UCLA, USC, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, Pitt and University of Hawaii. Through these collaborations, she published a manuscript as a lead author in the Journal of Sexuality Education and has collaborated on multiple manuscripts published in AIDS Care, Substance Use and Misuse, Journal of Social Work Practice in the Addictions, and LGBT Health. Shannon plans to apply knowledge gained to: (1) develop larger grants and context specific interventions to support transgender children, adolescents and their families across multiple social domains; and (2) build upon the broader field of child, adolescent and family research and health.

Ulises Ramirez

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Ulises Ramirez is a bilingual and bicultural licensed clinical social worker. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Masters in Social Welfare from UCLA. Mr. Ramirez has received Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) certifications from the Academy of Cognitive Therapy and the National Institute of Mental Health and began teaching the CBT course at UCLA’s Luskin Department of Social Welfare in 2010.

Mr. Ramirez retired from the Los Angeles County of Department of Mental Health (DMH) after 27 years of service. He dedicated his DMH career at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center’s Department of Psychiatry. Mr. Ramirez worked as a Psychiatric Social Worker, Mental Health Clinical Supervisor and as the Director of social work training. He was an MSW field instructor for 23 years and provided CBT and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) supervision to psychiatry residents and psychology externs. He was involved in the dissemination of CBT and Prolonged Exposure (PE) therapy treatments for the Los Angeles County’s department of mental health by supervising clinicians from directly and county contracted clinics.

Mr. Ramirez’ is intensively trained in DBT and was the clinical lead of the English and Spanish-speaking DBT programs at Harbor-UCLA. His interest in third-wave behavior therapies has also led him to receive intensive training in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and supervision by Robyn Walser, PhD. Additionally, Mr. Ramirez is certified as a practitioner and supervisor in PE therapy, a treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder.

Mr. Ramirez has been committed to providing culturally competent evidence-based practice treatment and was one of the founders of the Spanish-speaking clinic at Harbor-UCLA. He has performed training workshops and presentations on CBT, PE and DBT with the Latino population at several conferences. Mr. Ramirez is a co-author of the Cultural Competency and Dialectical Behavior Therapy chapter in the book Cultural Issues in Acceptance and Mindfulness Based Approaches.

Presently, in addition to teaching the CBT class at UCLA, Mr. Ramirez continues his clinical work through private practice. Additionally, he recently joined Argentina’s Universidad de Palermo’s master’s in cognitive behavioral therapy program where he will be teaching a DBT course.

Helmut K. Anheier

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Helmut K. Anheier is Adjunct Professor of Social Welfare and Public Policy, Professor of Sociology at the Hertie School in Berlin, Germany, and the Principal Investigator of the Berggruen Governance Index project at the Luskin School. He served as President of the Hertie School from 2009 to 2018, held a Chair of Sociology at the Max-Weber-Institute of Heidelberg University and served as founding Academic Director of the Centre for Social Investment and Innovation. He was the Academic Co-Director of the Dahrendorf Forum, a joint initiative by the Hertie School and the London School of Economics and Political Science. His research centres on social innovation, nonprofits, civil society and philanthropy; governance; cultural policy; organisational studies; and indicator systems. Anheier was the principal academic lead of the Governance Report (Oxford University Press), and is editor-in-chief of Global Perspectives (University of California Press). Anheier is author of numerous publications, many in leading journals and with top university presses. He has received various national and international awards. He received his PhD from Yale University in 1986, was a senior researcher at the Johns Hopkins University’s Institute for Policy Studies, Professor of Public Policy and Social Welfare at UCLA , Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and Associate Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University.  Before embarking on an academic career, he served as Social Affairs Officer at the United Nations.