The University of Tennessee College of Social Work (UTCSW) faculty has had a busy and productive summer receiving well-deserved promotions and awards. The faculty continues to represent the college as comprehensive thought leaders in the industry.
Brittany Adams was promoted to clinical associate professor effective July 1. Adams has been a member of the UTCSW faculty since 2014, serving first as a Field Instructor and Field Liaison for both the BSSW and MSSW programs. In June 2020, she was appointed Online BSSW Field Coordinator, a role in which she administers the undergraduate practicum and ensures its alignment with the broader curriculum. In this capacity, she mentors and advises students in their academic progression and professional development, cultivates and sustains partnerships with community agencies to provide practicum opportunities, teaches field seminars, and provides training and support for field instructors and liaisons, while engaging in the ongoing evaluation of field education. Guided by a relational teaching philosophy, Adams emphasizes connection, trust, and collaboration in her pedagogy. She seeks to create learning environments where students feel supported in developing their professional identities and are encouraged to integrate theory with practice through reflective engagement. Her relational approach extends to her work with community partners, reinforcing the belief that meaningful, reciprocal relationships are central to social work education.
Adrianna Carter joined the UTCSW as an Assistant Clinical Professor and Field Coordinator for the Online MSSW program and is located on the Nashville campus. Carter received her MSSW from the Nashville program and is a compassionate, trauma-informed social worker and educator with experience leading programs, supporting student and staff development, and fostering inclusive, mission-driven environments. She is skilled in student engagement, facilitation, supervision, community partnership development, and relationship-centered engagement across educational, and nonprofit settings. Carter has a strong passion for advancing social work values through student support and field education.
Dr. Courtney Cronley accepted the position as director of the PhD program. Cronley brings 15 years as a successful tenure-track faculty member in R1 institutions, with experience teaching doctoral coursework, serving on 19 dissertation committees and chairing nine of them, and mentoring doctoral students across the years. She brings innovative ideas, a commitment to student support balanced with rigorous academic preparation, and an intentionally inclusive approach to program leadership. Cronley officially started in the role on August 1. Cronley’s scholarship examines housing precarity and homelessness as critical social determinants of health, with particular attention to the role of the built environment. Her research seeks to identify and address structural inequities that shape the well-being of marginalized communities. She has authored more than 60 peer-reviewed publications and presented at national and international conferences. Her work has been supported by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Transportation, and the National Science Foundation. Cronley’s interdisciplinary approach integrates perspectives from sociology, public health, and urban studies to inform policies and practices that promote housing stability and health equity.
Dr. Mary Held was promoted to professor effective August 1. Held focuses her scholarship on strengthening knowledge related to trauma and resilience among immigrant communities to inform service provision in new destination states. Her work is situated in the current sociopolitical climate of both immigrant-sending nations and the United States. Informed by practice experience in Texas and Central America, Held designs quantitative and qualitative studies to gain more in-depth insight from Latinx and other immigrant community members and service providers to assess needs as well as risk and protective factors, the capacity to address these needs, and gaps in training for the future workforce. Research findings are applied to educate current and future health and social service providers on effective strategies to better meet the needs of the Latinx community.
Dr. Andrea Joseph-McCatty received tenure and promotion to associate professor effective August 1. Joseph-McCatty is a community-engaged critical scholar whose research focuses on addressing racial inequities in school discipline, particularly the disproportionate suspension of Black girls. Utilizing a mixed-methods approach, her work examines the intersection of trauma-informed care, socio-emotional learning, and restorative practices to create more equitable educational environments. She investigates the underlying causes of school pushout and seeks to develop interventions that support the socio-emotional wellness of marginalized students. Her research aims to bridge the gap between policy and practice, with a focus on fostering inclusive, supportive school systems that promote student well-being and equity.
Dr. Shelby McDonald accepted the position as All Creatures Great and Small Endowed Professor and Director of the Center for Veterinary Social Work in the College of Social Work, in partnership with the College of Veterinary Medicine. McDonald started August 1. McDonald is an internationally recognized scholar whose interdisciplinary work focuses on human–animal interaction (HAI), trauma, and health equity. She served as Director of the Human–Animal Bond in Colorado (HABIC) Center, held the Sarama Bliss Endowed Chair in Human–Animal Interaction, and was an Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at Colorado State University. McDonald directed the RISE HAI Lab (Research for Inclusion, Social Justice, and Equity in Human–Animal Interaction), which led equity-driven, community-engaged research on the social, structural, and ecological conditions that shape multispecies wellbeing. She studies how relationships with animals influence human health and wellbeing, and how social and structural inequities shape those relationships and their impact across contexts such as mental health, substance use, violence prevention, and access to housing and healthcare. Her research has been supported by organizations including the NIH, HABRI, and the ASPCA, and has informed policy, practice, and public discourse on trauma, mental health, and human–animal relationships at national and international levels, including presentations at congressional briefings. McDonald’s leadership in advancing inclusive, evidence-based approaches to human–animal interaction has earned national recognition—she was featured on Rover’s “10 Notable Women Changing the Pet World” list, highlighting her influence at the intersection of research, equity, and the pet-care community. Her work continues to promote health, safety, and justice across species.
Dr. Ruben Parra Cardona, Roger and Carol Nooe Endowed Chair, was honored with the 2026 Advances in Culture and Diversity in Prevention Science award by the Society for Prevention Research, a prestigious global prevention science organization. Recipients of this award are recognized for work to enhance understanding of culture in prevention science and the development of and adaptation of effective prevention strategies for traditionally underserved and/or underrepresented populations, including racial and ethnic minorities. Parra-Cardona was recognized for his sustained and influential contributions to the integration of culture into prevention science. His program of research has significantly advanced understanding of how culturally grounded prevention strategies can be developed, rigorously evaluated, and implemented with underserved populations, particularly Latinx immigrant families. Over the past two decades, Parra-Cardona has established a coherent and methodologically rigorous body of work focused on the cultural adaptation of evidence-based parenting interventions. Centered on the well-validated Parent Management Training–Oregon Model, his work demonstrates how core mechanisms of change can be preserved while meaningfully integrating culture and context. Through sustained NIH funding, he led the development and testing of the culturally adapted PMTO interventions for low-income immigrant families. His randomized trials show that an enhanced adapted model yielded additional benefits for child externalizing and internalizing outcomes, a model where immigration-related stress, discrimination, and bicultural challenges were explicitly incorporated into the intervention framework. This provides experimental evidence that careful attention to culture and contextual adversity can strengthen prevention impact. A defining contribution of Parra-Cardona’s scholarship is that it advances the field beyond superficial cultural tailoring. His research directly examines how structural inequities, including immigration stress and discrimination, shape parenting processes and intervention engagement. By embedding these contextual realities within intervention design and evaluation, he has advanced a more precise science of balancing fidelity and cultural fit, an issue central to prevention science globally. He has also made important conceptual advances, articulating enhanced frameworks for cultural adaptation that preserve scientific rigor while enhancing relevance for underserved populations. Additional details about his achievements can be found here: Society for Prevention Research
Dr. Kristen Ravi received tenure and promotion to associate professor effective August 1. Her scholarly agenda focuses on adverse outcomes associated with intimate partner violence (IPV) across the lifespan; IPV survivor help-seeking and service engagement; and more broadly, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). A growing area of her research program centers on positive childhood experiences (PCEs) and promoting healthy relationships as protective factors to support child and family well-being. She is particularly interested in the connection between mental and physical well-being and the role of nature.
Dr. Phyllis Thompson was promoted to clinical professor effective July 1. Additionally, Thompson was elected as the next chair-elect on the UTK Graduate Council. For 2026-27, she will serve in the role of chair elect. In 2027-28, she will serve as Council chair, and then in 2028-29, will serve as past chair. The mission of the Graduate Council is to promote excellence in graduate education. The Graduate Council establishes standards for admission, retention, and graduation; assesses curricular revisions and new proposals for graduate programs; evaluates interdisciplinary, intercollegiate, and international programs; and considers new initiatives and other matters of policy pertaining to graduate programs. The Graduate Council is a special committee of the Faculty Senate that works closely with the Graduate School and a variety of other campus bodies to fulfill its mission. For more information about the Graduate Council, go to https://gradschool.utk.edu/graduate-council/.
Drs. Mary Held, Rob Lucio, and Tiffany Washington were selected to participate in the newly launched Academy for Global Engagement (AGE), a year-long faculty development initiative led by the Center for Global Engagement in partnership with the Office of Global Research, Innovation, and Partnerships. Only twelve fellows were selected across the university, and social work is proud to have secured three of those spots. This is a significant accomplishment that reflects the strength of our faculty’s commitment to global research, international collaboration, and community-engaged scholarship.
Over the next nine months, the fellows will engage in professional development focused on international research funding, strategic global partnerships, and expanding UT’s impact through meaningful global engagement. AGE’s nine-month curriculum will inspire, motivate, and yield practical skills for cohort members to arrive at more fruitful international research collaborations and seek out alternative sources of grant funding. This dynamic curriculum will incorporate programming led by UT faculty, as well as Cormack Consultancy Group (CCG) and the National Council of University Research Administrators (NCURA). Faculty will travel to Washington, D.C., to meet with relevant funders and stakeholders, and conduct international travel to support their own independent research projects following the conclusion of the program.
(L to R: Mary Held, Rob Lucio, Tiffany Washington)
