PhD Student Directory
Carrie Bosch
Office Location: School of Social Work 2014
Phone: (217) 244-9884
Email: crbosch2@illinois.edu
Soo-Jung Byoun
Office Location: School of Social Work 2014
Phone: (217) 244-9884
Email: byoun1@illinois.edu
Pei-ling Chiang
Office Location: School of Social Work 2014
Phone: (217) 265-5227
Email: chiang9@illinois.edu
Pei-Ling's research is extensively centered on transnational migration and its effect on the well-being of children and women. She particularly examines immigrant women’s mental health in their acculturative process in relation to their family cohesion, social support and community-related factors.
Yu-ling Chiu
Office Location: School of Social Work 2080H
Phone: (217) 244-4662
Email: chiu22@illinois.edu
Yu-Ling is interested in child welfare. She is currently involved in the research project of Child Welfare Placement and Disproportionate Minority Contract in the Juvenile Justice System. Her dissertation focuses on the association between both child welfare and juvenile delinquency systems, particularly for female adolescents.
Shin-Woo Choi
Office Location: School of Social Work 2014
Phone: (217) 244-4942
Email: scchoi2@illinois.edu
Leah Cleeland
Office Location: School of Social Work 2035
Phone: (217) 333-4187
Email: cleelan1@illinois.edu
Jordan Davis
Office Location: School of Social Work 2035
Phone: (217) 305-3096
Email: jdavis37@illinois.edu
Susan Gershenfeld
Office Location: Provost Office
Phone: (217) 244-7719
Email: sgershen@illinois.edu
Samantha Hack-Ritzo
Office Location: School of Social Work 2070
Phone: (217) 244-5224
Email: shack2@illinois.edu
Samantha researches disparity issues in minority mental health care with a specific focus on African American men with serious mental illness. She is also interested in using Social Network Analysis to understand family, community, and therapeutic agency factors in the progression of clients' mental illness careers.
Jun Sung Hong
Office Location: School of Social Work 2014
Phone: (217) 244-9208
Email: jhong23@illinois.edu
Jun Sung's main research interests include school violence (bullying/peer victimization, sexual violence) and interpersonal violence (violence against parents, community violence, family violence, youth suicide). His secondary interests include juvenile delinquency, child welfare, school-based intervention, and cultural competency in social work practice from domestic and international perspectives.
Hui Huang
Office Location: School of Social Work 2080H
Phone: (217) 244-4662
Email: hhuang33@illinois.edu
Hui's research area of interest is child welfare. She is especially interested in conducting evaluation of child welfare programs. She has been involved in long-term evaluation of the Illinois Title IV-E (Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse) Waiver Demonstration. Her dissertation research examines how the characteristics of neighborhoods where placements locate impact child welfare population's juvenile justice involvement.
Jiyoung Kang
Office Location: School of Social Work 2080
Phone: 217-265-7867
Email: kang30@illinois.edu
Jiyoung's research interests evolve around child maltreatment prevention through utilizing formal and informal support for families at risk. Her dissertation research examines the impact of differential response on child welfare outcomes such as recurrence and re-report to CPS.
Sun-Wan Kang
Office Location: School of Social Work 2014
Phone: (217) 265-5227
Seon Mi Kim
Office Location: School of Social Work 2014
Phone: (217) 244-9208
Email: kim517@illinois.edu
Deirdre Lanesskog
Office Location: School of Social Work 2026
Phone: (217) 244-3625
Email: lanessd@illinois.edu
Deirdre's research interests include international migration and the responses of communities to new immigrant groups. She is particularly focused on the response of Midwestern cities and rural areas to growing immigrant populations.
Meng-Jung (Chloe) Lee
Office Location: School of Social Work 2026
Phone: (217) 244-4942
Meng-Jung's focus is of family processes and the health and well-being of children and youth. She is particularly interested in understanding healthy and disordered eating behaviors, body image and health, and risk and resilience against body image distortion; and how these factors and outcomes differ by family characteristics and family processes, race/ethnicity, age, gender, and SES.
Minli Liao
Office Location: School of Social Work 2014
Phone: (217) 265-5227
Email: mliao5@illinois.edu
Minli's current research interests are in special needs adoption and family adjustment to adoption, child abuse and neglect, and quantitative research methods. She is concerned about children with special needs who exit foster care through adoption or guardianship, their post-permanency service needs, and the effectiveness of post-adoption services in promoting children’s socio-emotional development and placement stability.
Ching-Hsuan Lin
Office Location: School of Social Work 2080
Phone: (217) 265-7867
Email: clin68@illinois.edu
Chennan Liu
Office Location: School of Social Work 2014
Phone: (217) 244-9208
Email: liu197@illinois.edu
Chennan's research interests include addictive behavior, especially internet related addictive behaviors, adolescents mental health and family theory. She is interested in the long term effect of internet related addictive behaviors on the development of adolescents, the natural trajectory of this problem and treatment effect for this problem. She would like to develop a promising treatment method for adolescents who have such problems based on cognitive behavior therapy, family therapy and motivational interviewing.
Emily Lux
Office Location: School of Social Work 2035
Phone: (217) 333-4187
Email: ealux@illinois.edu
Emily intends to focus her research on identifying deficits in culturally sensitive treatment in the child welfare system, and implementing educational initiatives to improve direct service approaches through increasing awareness and understanding of minority groups. Her research objectives involve developing intervention strategies and policy changes that provide related immigrant populations with the appropriate support, protection, and services crucial to achieving long-term success.
Lenore Matthew
Office Location: School of Social Work 2014
Phone: (217) 244-9884
Email: lematth2@illinois.edu
Joseph Minarik
Office Location: 703 S. Wright St. 2nd Floor
Phone: (217) 333-9497
Email: jminarik@illinois.edu
Megan Paceley
Office Location: School of Social Work 2080P
Phone: (217) 265-7865
Email: mpace01s@illinois.edu
Megan is interested in the ways lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth in non-metropolitan areas cope with victimization, discrimination, and minority stress. She is particularly interested in how marginalized youth within the LGBTQ community (e.g. LGBTQ youth of color, rural youth, etc.) cope with these issues and how community-based programs can effectively intervene to assist these, and all LGBTQ, youth. Her teaching interests are primarily in the areas of diversity and social work practice with LGBT clients, although she has secondary interests in research methods (quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods), advocacy, and policy.
Hyejoon Park
Office Location: School of Social Work 2014
Phone: (217) 244-0436
Email: park345@illinois.edu
Hyejoon has three core research interests: The first is relevant to child development (social, emotional, physical, behavioral areas) and education of children from underprivileged families, including low-income families, single-parent households, and immigrant families. Secondly, she is interested in program evaluation of social and public services for at-risk children and youth (e.g., mentoring programs, childcare services, and head start programs). Lastly, she is interested in how welfare and social policies affect low-income families.
Maria Pineros
Office Location: School of Social Work 2014
Phone: (217) 244-9884
Email: pineros1@illinois.edu
Jaclyn Saltzman
Office Location: School of Social Work 2014
Phone: (217) 244-9884
Email: saltzmn2@illinois.edu
Jill Schreiber
Office Location: School of Social Work 2080J
Phone: (217) 265-0410
Email: schreibe@illinois.edu
Jill's research focuses on children and families involved in the public child welfare system. Her dissertation research is on the effect of adolescents and foster parent religiosity on foster youth's outcomes.
Ozge Sensoy Bahar
Office Location: School of Social Work 2014
Phone: (217) 244-9208
Email: osensoy2@illinois.edu
Donna Underwood
Office Location: School of Social Work 2014
Phone: (217) 265-5227
Email: underwoo@illinois.edu
Donna's primary research interest is children's access to services for their educational and health care needs associated with diagnosed mental health problems. Her dissertation studies the process of access to services for children with ADHD and included the systems of education and health care. A large part of this work examined legal complaints filed by parents dissatisfied with educational services during a period of time when policy affecting this group of children changed due to IDEA legislation.
Ming Sheng Wang
Office Location: School of Social Work 2014
Phone: (217) 244-0436
Email: wang328@illinois.edu
Xiaoling Xiang
Office Location: School of Social Work 2014
Phone: (217) 244-0436
Email: xxiang3@illinois.edu