Areas of research
Children, Women & Family Well-Being
SP2’s Centers and Faculty, working through an interdisciplinary approach with other Penn Schools, focus on critical reform to the child welfare system, improving the lives of children and women who are victims of abuse, and advocate for policy and practice reform at the local, state, and national levels.
Featured Centers
Ortner Center on Violence and Abuse
The Field Center Children’s Policy, Practice & Research
FEATURED FACULTY
Desmond Upton Patton, PhD, MSW
Professor; PhD, University of Chicago, 2012. Activism & social justice; qualitative methods; youth; gun violence; big data; digital culture; public health; race & ethnicity; social media.
FEATURED FACULTY
Jennifer J. Prah, PhD, MSL, MSc, MA
Professor; PhD, Harvard, 1998. Health and social policy; health equity and policy; global health justice and government; health and social justice; health financing; economic evaluation; political economy of health; cost analyses.
FEATURED FACULTY
Johanna K.P. Greeson, PhD, MSS, MLSP
Associate Professor; PhD, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2009. The transition to adulthood among youth who age out of foster care; natural mentoring and other supportive adult relationships for youth who age out of foster care; child traumatic stress; applied community-based intervention research and translation of research to practice; resiliency, risk and protective factors; neurobiological mechanisms of resiliency-focused interventions; life course theory; domestic minor sex trafficking
FEATURED FACULTY
Abigail (Abby) M. Ross, LICSW, MPH, PhD
Associate Professor; PhD, Boston University. Intervention research, implementation science, mental health, interprofessional practice, public health social work, youth suicide prevention, social care integration, evidence-based practice.
FEATURED FACULTY
Millan AbiNader, MSW, PhD
Assistant Professor; PhD, Boston University. Gender-based violence; intimate partner violence; intimate partner homicide; rural communities; community-level risk; vicarious trauma.
FEATURED FACULTY
DeMarcus A. Jenkins, PhD
Assistant Professor; PhD, University of California, Los Angeles. Education policy, housing policy, criminal/juvenile justice, school safety & discipline, gentrification, anti-Black racism, Critical Race Theory, social movements.
Related News
Faculty & Research
01/09
SP2 at SSWR 2026: Leading for Transformative Change
Penn’s School of Social Policy & Practice (SP2) is proud to participate in the 30th Annual Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR) Conference, taking place January 14 –18, 2026, in Washington, D.C.
Faculty & Research
12/19
Centering joy in AI development and implementation
PIK Professor Desmond Upton Patton and collaborators introduce a joy-informed framework designed to initiate conversations among engineers, designers, and researchers.
Faculty & Research
12/11
SP2’s Dr. Desmond Patton named to AASWSW Class of 2026
Dr. Desmond Upton Patton has been selected to join the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare's Class of 2026 Fellows.