Scholars on the Market
All NYU Silver PhD candidates have received personalized mentoring and cutting-edge research opportunities throughout their doctoral training, positioning them to be top social work scholars and leaders in the field. The following scholars are currently seeking an academic appointment.
Daniel Baslock
Daniel Baslock is a 5th year PhD Candidate in the Silver School of Social Work. His research centers on community mental health and substance use treatment agencies adoption and facilitation of co-occurring disorders treatment in rural practice settings. Using implementation science frameworks with a focus on inner setting agency characteristics, Daniel seeks to understand what facilitates or impedes integration of mental health and substance use services. His dissertation is a natural experiment using electronic health record data to assess a blended Medicaid payment model’s impact on co-occurring service delivery and care quality in a predominantly rural state.
Daniel uses computational social science skills to manage large data sets, while focusing on time series analysis and multi-level modeling to manage longitudinal data and clinical data nested within organizational data. His past research has included a psychometric evaluation of a measure of person-centered care planning, a qualitative study of youth and prevention providers perspectives on substance use prevention messaging, and various studies of publicly available data sets.
Prior to starting his PhD education, Daniel practiced in predominantly rural community settings as a social worker and drug and alcohol counseling for over nine years. In agency practice he specialized in providing treatment for co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders, and in providing clinical supervision to social work interns, mental health counseling interns, and for clinicians aiming for independent licensure. He has a graduate certificate in advanced clinical supervision from Smith College.
Highlights:
Publications
- Baslock, D., Gramuglia, B., Spirito, A., Mashkuri, J, & Stanhope, V. (2021). A brief report on rapid access to medication assisted treatment. Social Work in Mental Health, 19(6), 494-501. https://doi.org/10.1080/15332985.2021.1927936
Presentations
- Baslock, D. (July 2023). Invited lecture: United States cannabis policy. Comparative Mental Health Policy and Practice in the U.K. and the U.S. New York University and Strathclyde University collaboration.
- Baslock, D., Stanhope, V. (January 2021). Developing a measure of person-centered care. Society for Social Work Research Annual Meeting, Online.
Grants/Awards
- Pre-doctoral fellow in Rory Meyers School of Nursing NIDA T32 Behavioral Health Sciences Training Program
- Scholarship for Public Administration, Public Policy, and Public Affairs, Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) summer program, Ann Arbor, MI
Sabrina Cluesman
Sabrina R. Cluesman (she/they) is a Ph.D. Candidate at NYU Silver School of Social Work and is a licensed clinical social worker, who brings two decades of direct clinical social work practice with queer and trans youth populations. Sabrina’s research and teaching interests are guided by both personal and professional experiences. She has taught undergraduate and master-level courses, including an MSW-level advanced social policy course for queer and trans populations.
Sabrina’s research agenda addresses health inequities in the fields of HIV and substance use prevention. She specializes in the experiences of gender and sexual minority youth and emerging adults, including those who identify as Black and/or Latinx. Their research is driven by a mission to uncover and address racial/ethnic inequities along the PrEP and HIV care continuums, utilizing innovative interventions that aim to mitigate the harmful impacts of racism, homophobia, and transphobia. Notably, Sabrina secured an F31 Ruth L. Kirschstein Predoctoral Individual National Research Service Award (NRSA) in the amount of $76,378 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to support her mixed methods dissertation research, which focuses on barriers to PrEP use among Black and Latinx transgender and gender-expansive youth and emerging adults. This project is innovative in its focus on both gender minority stress and gender affirmation. Sabrina has statistical training in Stata, R Studio, and Mplus, in structural equation modeling with moderated mediation, and is trained in the Multiphase Optimization Strategy (MOST). Sabrina’s research contributions are reflected in nine publications (one, first author), with three additional manuscripts in progress (two, first author). These accomplishments underscore the significance and impact of their research within the fields of social work and public health.
Highlights:
Grants
- Cluesman, S.R. & Gwadz, M., (2022) Funded- $76,378. National Institute of Health (NIH), National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award for Individual Predoctoral Fellows (F31). Using mixed methods to understand barriers to PrEP use among Black and Latinx transgender and gender-expansive youth and emerging adults: The impact of gender minority stress and gender affirmation. 2-year predoctoral training grant. 1F31DA057157-01
Papers
- Cluesman, S.R., Gwadz M., Freeman R., Collins L., Cleland C., Wilton L., Hawkins, R.L., Leonard, N. Silverman, E., Maslow, C., Israel, K., Ory, S. (2023). Exploring intervention components for African American/Black and Latino persons living with non-suppressed HIV viral load in the United States: A qualitative study. International Journal for Equity in Health, 22(22). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-023-01836-3
- Gwadz M., Cluesman, S.R., Freeman R., Collins L., Dorsen, C., Hawkins, R.L., Cleland C., Wilton L., Allen, Y. Ritchie A., Torbjornsen, K., Leonard, N., Martinez, B., Silverman, E., Israel, K., Kutnick, A. (2022). Correction: Advancing behavioral interventions for African American/Black and Latino persons living with HIV using a new conceptual model that integrates critical race theory, harm reduction, and self-determination theory: a qualitative exploratory study. International Journal for Equity in Health, 21(110). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-022-01708-2
Presentations
- Cluesman, S.R., Cleland C., Gwadz M., (2024, January 10-14). Understanding Gender Minority Stress and Resilience Among Transgender and Gender-Expansive Youth and Emerging Adults and Their Relationship to PrEP Intentions. (Oral Presentation). Society for Social Work and Research Annual Conference. Washington, D.C.
- Cluesman, S.R., Gwadz M., Freeman R., Cleland C., Hawkins, R.L., Leonard N., Jonas D.F., Collins L., Wilton L., Martinez, B., and Ritchie A. (2020, October 24-28). Stopping, starting, and sustaining HIV antiretroviral therapy: A mixed methods retrospective exploration among long-term survivors of HIV in high-risk contexts. (Oral Presentation). American Public Health Association Annual Meeting & Expo. Virtual Program. “David Rosenstein Award for Best Student Abstract”.
Julian Cohen-Serrins
Julian Cohen-Serrins is a 5th year PhD candidate and licensed clinical social worker. His research is located within the fields of micro-organizational behavior and occupational social work. Julian’s research specifically centers on burnout, organizational culture, shared trauma, and implementation science. His dissertation research employed a convergent mixed-methods design to test how two key aspects of organizational culture impact burnout among social workers, nurses, and physicians. Julian has also recently conducted multi-method research on the psychosocial impacts of shared traumatic stress among clinicians working during the COVID-19 pandemic. Julian has training in survey design, Stata, R Studio, Qualtrics, Dedoose, and Taguette. Before pursuing a PhD, Julian had worked in a range of mental health and social service settings in roles that included organizational development, supervision/management, and clinical social work. Julian helped establish Philadelphia’s only co-occurring partial hospitalization program for Medicaid funded adults and worked on a CDC-funded pilot project aimed to holistically increase access to PrEP and social services for the local LGBTQ community.
Highlights:
Publications
- Cohen-Serrins J. (2021) How COVID-19 Exposed an Inadequate Approach to Burnout: Moving Beyond Self-Care. In: Tosone C. (eds) Shared Trauma, Shared Resilience During a Pandemic. Essential Clinical Social Work Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61442-3_27
- Cohen-Serrins J. (2021) The COVID-19 Self-Care Survival Guide: A Framework for Clinicians to Categorize and Utilize Self-Care Strategies and Practices. In: Tosone C. (eds) Shared Trauma, Shared Resilience During a Pandemic. Essential Clinical Social Work Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61442-3_37
- Cohen-Serrins, J., & Tosone, C. (2024). Positioning Self-care for Social Workers in the Disaster Context: An Individual and Organization Perspective. Handbook of Social Work and Disaster Practice, Routledge.
Grants/Awards
- Mental Research Institute, Dissertation Research Grant, PI: Julian Cohen-Serrins, 2023
- Substance Abuse Research Education and Training (SARET) Summer Research Program Fellow, 2023
Gerri Connaught
Gerri K. Connaught, LMSW is a Ph.D. Candidate, NYC Reducing Inequality (RIN-NYC) Fellow, a social work clinical practitioner, and a graduate adjunct instructor at the Silver School of Social Work. Gerri’s research and clinical practice focuses on the intersections of race and wellness equities. Her clinical experience includes working with adults, young adults, military veterans, and various student populations (e.g., first generation college students, student veterans, adult learners) with issues such as anxiety, depression, racial identity, trauma, life transitions, stress management, and the impostor phenomenon. Gerri also serves as a Peer Advocate and Consultant for the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) office at the NYU Silver School of Social Work. In this role, Gerri helps students of color navigate their academic journeys and explores DEI best practices to help students of color thrive in academia. Gerri’s research interests include examining the structural ways in which higher education institutions contribute to feelings of the imposter phenomenon among students of color, particularly in social work education, and how this impacts their mental health and sense of self.
Ning He
Ning He, MSW, is a PhD candidate at the New York University Silver School of Social Work. Her research focuses on the social determinants of health (SDoH) within underrepresented populations, especially foreign-born individuals and families, and persons living with HIV (PLWH). The perspectives of my research projects mainly focus on immigration, racism, and health disparities. She authored a paper employing machine learning methods to study medical mistrust among people living with HIV. Ning's dissertation compares HIV mechanisms in U.S.-born and foreign-born women, with a specific emphasis on the role of racism. She was accepted by the Substance Use Research Education and Training (SARET) Program award from NYU Grossman School of Medicine. She received the New Writers Fellowship from the Family Process Institute for her research on parenting behaviors and adolescent health outcomes in immigrant and non-immigrant families.
Ning He actively contributes to various research and intervention initiatives, such as a pilot study on Inflammatory Biomarkers of Depressive Symptoms in Type II Diabetes in women with and without HIV, the examination of community resilience among Chinese elder immigrants in New York City, the Heart to Heart intervention for improved HIV treatment outcomes, and the Clinics Optimizing Methadone Take-homes for opioid use disorder (COMET) project—a stepped-wedge randomized trial designed to facilitate clinic-level transformations. Her research draws from established theories like family stress theory, social action theory, and immigration adaptation theories, employing a mixed-methods approach and expertise in biosocial statistics and survey methodologies.
Yuanyuan Hu
Yuanyuan Hu is a PhD Candidate at New York University Silver School of Social Work and a licensed clinical social worker in New York State. Yuanyuan’s research aims to study how implementation strategies could enhance the accessibility and cultural appropriateness of integrated behavioral health care within diverse community settings through community-engaged research. Additionally, her work examines the factors associated with the utilization of behavioral health services and behavioral health outcomes among BIPOC populations on systematic, organizational, and individual levels. Prior to attending the PhD program, Yuanyuan had extensive experience as a clinical social worker providing mental health treatment and social services to older adults. Her professional experiences and research training have helped her develop a deep understanding of the impact of socioeconomic factors on their health and mental health issues among older BIPOC adults and motivated her to focus on the possibilities to expand health and mental health care access by integrating health and mental health services into social service settings.
Highlights:
Awards
2023 The Asian and Pacific Islander Social Work Educators Association (APISWEA) Doctoral Fellowship
2022 New York University C.V. Starr Fund for Asian/Pacific/American Research
Publications
Hu, Y., Stanhope, V., Matthews, E.B. & Baslock, D.M. (2021). A brief report on Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics Demonstration Program. Social Work in Mental Health, 19(6), 534–541. https://doi.org/10.1080/15332985.2021.1929663
- Maglalang D., Hu, Y., Baslock D., Daus J. D., Cano, M., & Ahluwalia.J.S. (in press). Recency of cannabis vaping in sexual gender minorities in wave 5 of the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) Study. Substance Use & Misuse.
Presentations
Hu, Y., & Xu, Q. (2022) A (dis)orderly progression: The lasting impact of pandemic on social service organizations. Oral presentation at the Annual Conference of Society for Social Work and Research. Phoenix, AZ.
Hu, Y., Wortham, W. & Stanhope, V. (Accepted). Barriers and facilitators to implementation of mental health task sharing in community-based services for older adults: A qualitative study. 16th Annual Conference on the Science of Dissemination and Implementation. Arlington, VA.