Students - Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis

Sarah Harding named 2026 Brown School student marshal

admin — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 08:03:00 +0000

Sarah Harding has been selected as the 2026 student marshal for the Brown School’s recognition ceremony, an honor that will place her at the front of the Class of 2026 on Wednesday, May 13. As student marshal, Harding will carry the school banner and lead fellow degree candidates into the ceremony at 17�Թ�’s Athletic Complex Field House on the Danforth Campus. Marshals are chosen through faculty and peer nominations that recognize academic achievement, practicum engagement, and contributions to the school community. Harding will earn a master’s degree in social work with a concentration in children, youth, and family. Raised primarily in Southern Illinois, Harding said she was drawn to the Brown School after hearing strong recommendations from alumni who spoke...

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Liz Smith named Brown School student speaker

admin — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 07:31:00 +0000

Liz Smith will serve as the student speaker at the Brown School’s recognition ceremony on May 13, marking the completion of her master’s degree in social work and a brief break before returning in the fall to begin her doctoral program. A Massachusetts native, Smith didn’t initially plan a career in social work. After earning a bachelor’s degree in psychology, a conversation with her therapist helped reframe her interests. “My therapist at the time told me that what I described sounded more like social work than psychology. So, I began looking up social work programs,” she said. Smith learned about the Brown School through a friend in St. Louis. Soon after, things began to align. She applied for positions in the area and was flown...

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Brown School student recognized for harm reduction practicum work

admin — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 17:37:55 +0000

As she prepares to graduate soon with a master’s degree in social work from 17�Թ�, Isla Frazier says her practicum experience in a hospital-based harm reduction program has helped her translate research into clinical practice. Frazier was recently named the 2026 recipient of the Tasch-Kopolow Scholarship from PreventEd, an honor recognizing her commitment to achieving excellence in a professional career serving the substance use field. During her Master of Social Work program, Frazier completed her first practicum at the Federal Public Defender’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri. She is now finishing her second placement with the Injection Drug Use Bridge to Health Program at the 17�Թ� School of Medicine’s Division of Infectious Diseases, a hospital-based harm reduction initiative...

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Brown School students call for social work approach to improve St. Louis disaster response

admin — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 10:01:00 +0000

St. Louis is not adequately prepared for increasingly frequent and severe climate-related disasters, according to a new student-led report from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. The report calls for more inclusive, coordinated and community-driven emergency planning. The report, “Community Development and Disaster Preparedness in the City of St. Louis: A Vision for Response with a Social Work Lens,” was written by graduate students in social work, public health and social policy as part of the Brown School’s spring 2025 Community Development course. It was published by 17�Թ�’s Center for the Environment. Guided by Molly Metzger, a teaching professor at the Brown School, and teaching assistant Rachel Hurtado, the project incorporated input from local agencies, community leaders...

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Brown School students take social work lessons to local policy hearings

admin — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 20:42:53 +0000

When a tornado tore through the St. Louis region last May, Chloe Brewer, a Master of Social Work student at Washington University’s Brown School, lost her apartment. Though her home was uninhabitable, her property management initially insisted she continue paying rent. Brewer recently recounted that experience during a meeting of the Housing, Urban Development and Zoning Committee of the St. Louis Board of Alderman, advocating for full funding of the city’s Housing Eviction Law Program, also known as the Right to Counsel Program. The program provides access to legal representation for tenants facing eviction. “They would have made me pay rent for the month of June, only two weeks after the tornado, despite having no place to live,” Brewer told...

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Brown School to fund practicums, provide stipends for social work students

admin — Mon, 12 Jan 2026 06:01:00 +0000

The Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis will fully fund practicum internship experiences and provide living stipends to students in its Master of Social Work program beginning in fall 2026, Dorian Traube, the Neidorff Family and Centene Corporation Dean of the Brown School, announced. The Practicum Support Award will be available to both new and returning MSW students. It will cover full tuition for required practicum credits and provide a living stipend distributed throughout a student’s program. Traube said both tuition coverage and stipend support are essential to addressing the financial strain students often face during unpaid practicum placements. Meeting the rigorous applied training requirements of the MSW degree can make it challenging to simultaneously maintain paid employment....

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PhD student awarded grant to support young people living with HIV in China

admin — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 20:47:45 +0000

Yutian Chen, a first-year PhD student in social work at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, has received a one-year grant to study the experiences of young adults living with HIV in China. Chen was awarded funding from Gilead Sciences in China through its corporate grants program. The grant will support a participatory action research project examining the lived experiences of young adults living with HIV in China, with the goal of enhancing their social support and well-being. Chen is conducting the project in partnership with Rainbow Nest, an LGBTQ+ community organization in Hangzhou, China. The initiative will use Photovoice, a qualitative research method that allows participants to document their own realities through photography, personal narratives and...

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Three Brown School students receive prestigious CSWE minority fellowships

admin — Mon, 24 Nov 2025 13:00:00 +0000

Three students at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis have been selected for the 2025-2026 Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) Minority Fellowship Program (MFP). Jonathan Manjarrez, a Master of Social Work student, was named a CSWE MFP MSW Fellow. Kelley McCall, a PhD candidate, and Emani Sargent, a PhD student, were selected as CSWE MFP Doctoral Fellows. This year’s cohort includes 30 doctoral and 40 MSW fellows, chosen through a competitive three-round review process. The Minority Fellowship Program provides recipients with a stipend, mentorship, specialized training, and practical experience to prepare them for leadership roles in behavioral health. Sargent said she is “overwhelmed with gratitude” for the fellowship, calling it an honor that reinforces her commitment to addressing mental health disparities and...

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MSW student named Heartland Journalism Fellow

admin — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 16:04:34 +0000

Wen Gao, a Master of Social Work student at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, has been named a Heartland Journalism Fellow. Now in its third year, the Heartland Journalism Fellowship recognizes two writers annually: one 17�Թ� student, graduate or undergraduate, whose work focuses on local or regional issues, and one local minority writer. Established by 17�Թ� and the River City Journalism Fund, the fellowship supports aspiring minority and underrepresented writers. During the yearlong program, Gao will work with 17�Թ� faculty and staff of The Common Reader, the university’s journal of essays and ideas, to produce stories that explore issues of race, ethnicity and equity. Originally from China, Gao is the first recipient of the fellowship whose...

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Faculty, PhD student receive grant to study adolescent girls in Ghana

Myra — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 19:33:30 +0000

Two members of the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis have received a 2025 Seed Grant from the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research (OVCR) to study sexual risk behaviors among adolescent girls in Ghana, drawing insights from both mothers and daughters. The grant recipients are Proscovia Nabunya, associate professor at the Brown School and director of the International Center for Child Health and Development (ICHAD); Portia Nartey, a third-year doctoral student in social work and research associate at ICHAD; and Juliet Iwelunmor, professor of medicine and associate director for global health and dissemination at 17�Թ� Medicine. Nartey will work under the mentorship of Nabunya and Iwelunmor. The research will focus on Ghana’s eastern region, which faces high poverty rates and...

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Brown School welcomes first standalone Master of Social Policy cohort

admin — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 21:45:00 +0000

The Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis has welcomed the inaugural cohort of its standalone Master of Social Policy (MSP) program. Previously offered only as part of a dual-degree track, the MSP is now available as a one-year, three semester program that includes a summer internship, and emphasizes practical skills in advocacy, negotiation, evaluation, and economic decision-making. “The MSP degree builds skills in all aspects of the policy ecosystem, from economics to advocacy to strategy to evaluation,” said Anna Goldfarb Shabsin, assistant dean of the MSP program. “This degree is perfect for anyone who is interested in impacting policy, from those new to policy work to those who already have experience in the field.” The inaugural class of...

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Brown School welcomes new social work PhD students

admin — Tue, 19 Aug 2025 11:31:00 +0000

The Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis is proud to welcome seven new students to its PhD program in Social Work. This year’s incoming cohort encompasses a diverse range of research interests, including refugee and immigrant well-being, child welfare policy and practice, technology and AI in health, end-of-life care and elder care, and more. Anwesha Chatterjee is a queer-feminist social worker from India with a strong commitment to working for and with women and girls, especially survivors of violence. For the past two years, she has led a community-based organization in India that combines on-ground direct work with communities with regional and national advocacy. She writes extensively and grounds herself through music and movement. Yutian Chen is a...

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Campus spaces honor Indigenous history, promote mental health

admin — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 19:25:14 +0000

Near Hillman Hall, just steps from Forsyth Boulevard, a garden welcomes visitors into a calming, natural retreat. Nestled among trees, native sweetgrass, and coneflowers, the Buder Circle & Three Sisters Garden offers a tranquil space centered around corn, beans, and squash; plants deeply rooted in Indigenous agricultural traditions. This garden is one of 15 newly designated “Connection Points” across 17�Թ�’s Danforth Campus, part of a broader effort led by the Brown School’s Kathryn M. Buder Center for American Indian Studies. These spaces are the result of the Arboretum/Mental Health Space project, an initiative developed by students in the Sustainability Exchange, a capstone course for Environmental Analysis majors. The project reimagines familiar campus areas as mental health spaces where students, faculty,...

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Brown School student discusses tech-driven educator misconduct on national podcast

admin — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 15:56:18 +0000

Kotomi Yokokura, a dual-degree Master of Social Work/Master of Social Policy student at the Brown School, recently appeared on the One in Ten podcast produced by the National Children’s Alliance, to discuss how text messaging and social media are changing the landscape of educator sexual misconduct. “In this study I found that a majority of educators who were disciplined for educator sexual misconduct did use some type of electronic communication or technology to carry out educator sexual misconduct,” Yokokura explained during the episode. Drawing from her research, Yokokura described how some educators are increasingly using social media and messaging apps to carry out educator sexual misconduct, methods that often make it harder to detect and prevent abuse. She also shared her personal motivation...

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Brown School volunteers support tornado recovery efforts in North St. Louis

admin — Fri, 23 May 2025 17:51:42 +0000

In the wake of a devastating tornado that struck the St. Louis area on Friday, May 16, students, alumni, and faculty from 17�Թ�’s Brown School have mobilized to assist recovery efforts in one of the city’s hardest-hit neighborhoods. The tornado cut a 23-mile-long path, damaging or destroying an estimated 5,000 structures, according to St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer. The storm claimed five lives and injured dozens more, with the greatest impact felt in North St. Louis—a historically disinvested and predominantly Black community. On May 20, a team of volunteers from the Brown School, including 12 students, two alumni, and four faculty members, joined local relief efforts at the People’s Response Hub, a recovery initiative launched by Action St. Louis and...

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