Main Content
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Distinguished Community Engagement Award
Dr. Eric Madfis is being recognized for his community engagement through his work at UW Tacoma's School of Social Work and Criminal Justice and the Violence Prevention and Transformation Research Collaborative. His work embodies the spirit of community engagement, including fostering positive change and contributing public-facing knowledge for the reduction of violence in our schools and communities.
This award recognizes Dr. Madfis's collaborative community-based approach to research, service, and partnership development related to the Violence Prevention and Transformation Research Collaborative and scholarship on the Salem-Keizer Cascade Threat Assessment Model – both which have local, regional, and national impact. Dr. Madfis's work entails collaborative involvement with practitioners, administrators, students, teachers, and scholars to make a positive impact and reduce school and community violence.
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Recent Promotions
The School of Social Work and Criminal Justice would like to congratulate Dr. Eric Madfis and Dr. Claudia Sellmaier on their recent promotions. Dr. Madfis was promoted to Professor and Dr. Sellmaier was promoted to Associate Professor in September 2023.
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Dr. Eric Madfis
Promotion to Full Professor!
Eric Madfis, Ph.D., is a Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Washington Tacoma, where his research focuses on the causes and prevention of school violence, hate crime, and mass murder. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from Northeastern University in Boston, where he was a Research Associate at the Brudnick Center on Violence and Conflict. He often teaches courses on Criminological Theory, Sociology of Deviance and Social Control, Criminal Homicide, Juvenile Justice, and Diversity and Social Justice in Criminology.
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Dr. Claudia Sellmaier
Promotion to Associate Professor!
Dr. Sellmaier incorporates high-impact practices such as service learning and independent mentored projects in her teaching. Each of her classes has some component of community engagement, serve learning or “real world” application built into the curriculum. Sellmaier regularly receives strong course evaluations from her student who report feeling respected, included, supported and encouraged to try new things. During her time at UW Tacoma Sellmaier has created and implemented new coursework at both the undergraduate and graduate level in the field of disability studies.
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Events
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Dr. Madfis' work at NaSEM Workshop
K-12 Behavioral Threat Assessment Efficacy and Implementation Evaluation Workshop
Eric Madfis was one of the committee planning members and moderated two panels at the "K-12 Behavioral Threat Assessment Efficacy and Implementation Evaluation Research" Workshop in September 2024. This two day event was put on by the The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NaSEM) for the U.S. Secret Service's National Threat Assessment Center. Dr. Madfis is pictured here with Dr. Franci Crepeau-Hobson (left) and Dr. Dewey Cornell (center).
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Convict and Lived Experience in Australia and Beyond Symposium
Associate Professor Grant Tietjen
Convict Criminology has it roots in the 1990's in the U.S and has steadily expanded to other countries. It has recently gained prominence in Australia and the first symposium was held on March 14, 2024 at 8:30am (Australian time). Dr. Grant Tietjen was one of the speakers at this event held at the University of Southern Queensland.
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Still Doing Life: 22 Lifers, 25 Years Later
Still Doing Life is a publication and photography exhibition by Barb Toews and Howard Zehr which features portraits and interviews with 22 men and women incarcerated with life without parole in Pennsylvania at two points in time during their incarceration - mid-1990s and 2017. The Still Doing Life photography exhibit was on display in the Powerhouse, Snoqualmie Library from September 25 through December 1, 2023. A moderated discussion with John “Freddie” Nole, one of the “lifers” in the book who has been released, was held on Wednesday, October 11, 2023.
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Awards
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University of Washington Royalty Research Fund Awardee
Anindita Bhattacharya, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, School of Social Work and Criminal Justice
Dr. Bhattacharya was awarded a Royalty Research Fund Award for her research: Understanding Help-Seeking Pathways among Racially Minoritized Women Experiencing Intimate Partner Violence: A Longitudinal Investigation.
The Royalty Research Fund (RRF) is a competitive awards program that provides research support to University of Washington faculty. Dr. Bhattacharya was the only faculty from UW Tacoma awarded an RFF this round.
Dr. Grant Tietjen awarded Outstanding Article Award from the ASC, DCC
Dr. Grant Tietjen was awarded the Outstanding Article Award from the American Society of Criminology (ASC), Division of Convict Criminology (DCC) for "Let the Convicts Speak: A Critical Conversation of the Ongoing Language Debate in Convict Criminology". This article was collaborative effort, written by Dr. Tietjen, Dr. Jennifer M. Ortiz, Dr. Alison Cox and Dr. Daniel Ryan Kavish, all system-involved scholars. This paper explores the power of language, summarizes various sides of the ongoing language debate, reviews existing convict criminology research, and addresses structural violence within the academy.
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Media Coverage
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Dr. JaeRan Kim
Featured in The Imprint article on foster care
Dr. JaeRan Kim, Associate Professor of Social Work, was recently featured in an article that details how children of color in foster care are more more likely to live with white foster parents and why there are concerns.
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Ronnie San Nicolas
Assistant Teaching Professor Ronnie San Nicolas's lived experience guides his hands-on approach to teaching as well as his work with the Simon Family Endowment and AAPI THRIVE.
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BBC Future Family Tree episode highlights SSWCJ Faculty JaeRan Kim
Dr. JaeRan Kim provides expertise on adoption breakdown
SSWCJ Associate Professor JaeRan Kim is quoted in this story by a BBC writer who is himself a parent of an adopted child. Dr. Kim refers to the lack of research on adoption post-childhood, and discusses a concept called adoption breakdown (where adoptive parents don’t end up raising their adopted children to adulthood).
Dr. Kenneth Cruz
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Criminal Justice faculty weigh in on Tacoma Crime Plan
The News Tribune recently published an in-depth article on Chief of Police Avery Moore's new crime plan. UW Tacoma criminologists Ken Cruz and Janelle Hawes reviewed the plan and voiced their concerns including lack of involvement by the community, incomplete data, and not addressing the root causes of violence. Read the full TNT article for more.
Ken Cruz researches community-based crime prevention and Janelle Hawes specializes in data analysis. They were part of a group of five UW Tacoma CJ faculty who presented a report on preventing local youth gun violence to city officials and the City Council earlier in the year.
Dr. Janelle Hawes
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Recent coverage for Dr. Eric Madfis
In the wake of our nation's most recent devastating acts of violence, Dr. Eric Madfis' expertise on school and environmental threat assessment, violence, and mass shootings continues to be sought on a local and national level. Eric has been featured and/or quoted by the Washington Post, NPR, HBO's "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver", and The News Tribune to name a few.
Dr. Eric Madfis
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Vern Harner podcast on Paw'd Defiance
UW Tacoma Assistant Professor Vern Harner discusses the importance of having trans researchers conduct research about the trans community. Harner is trans and played an important role in getting the University of Washington to change its diploma name policy, which formerly only allowed full legal names on diplomas.
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Rolling Up His Sleeves
Charles Emlet's experience as a social worker lead him to UW Tacoma and a career that changed our understanding of aging in vulnerable communities.
Dr. Charles Emlet
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The Accumulated Wisdom of Tom Diehm
After spending 24 years at UW Tacoma connecting social work students to agencies, Tom Diehm knows something about community building and the costs of field experience.
Dr. Tom Diehm
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Faculty Research
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Cruz, Kenneth: Criminology, Law and Society
Hawes, Janelle: Criminology, Education, Marginalized Populations and Mental Health
Madfis, Eric: School Violence; School Discipline; Mass Shootings; Hate Crime and Supremacist Groups; Deviance and Social Control; Critical Criminology; Masculinities
Myers, Randy: Youth Justice, Crime and Public Policy, Criminological Theory, Punishment and Inequality
Toews, Barb: Restorative Justice; Environmental Design and Psychosocial Behavioral and Judicial Outcomes
Bhattacharya, Anindita: Global Mental Health, Cross-Cultural Qualitative Research, Gender-Based Violence, Trauma, Gender Disparities and Health Equity among Women, Community Mental Health Interventions
Emlet, Charles: Gerontological Social Work, HIV and Aging, LGBTQ Aging
Harris, Marian: Child Welfare (including but not limited to the following areas: mother-child attachment, childhood trauma, racial disproportionality and disparities in child welfare, children of incarcerated parents and kinship care).
Garner, Michelle: Spirituality & Social Work
Kim, JaeRan: Adoption, Disabilities
Sellmaier, Claudia: Economic Security, Work-Life Fit
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Faculty Publications
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