ABOUT EMILY M. DOUGLAS, PH.D.

I am an assistant professor in the Social Work Department and Master of Social Work program at Bridgewater State College in Bridgewater, Massachusetts and founder and chair of the National Research Conference on Child and Family Programs and Policy. I am the sole co-investigator of the NIMH-funded study, Mental Health Status of Male Help-seekers Who have Sustained Partner Violence; (Dr. Denise Hines, Clark University, Psychology Department, Principle Investigator). In 2006 my book, Mending Broken Families: Social Policies for Divorced Families--How Effective Are They? was published by Rowman & Littlefield. I am co-author (with Murray Straus and Rose Medeiros) of the forthcoming book The Primordial Violence: Corporal Punishment by Parents, Cognitive Development, and Crime and editor of another forthcoming book, Current Trends in Child and Family Policy (Lexington Books).

In my previous positions I was an assistant extension professor at the University of New Hampshire in the Department of Family Studies.  I was also co-chair of the 9th International Family Violence Research Conference held in Portsmouth, New Hampshire in July, 2005 .  Between 2002-2004 I was a postdoctoral research fellow with Dr. Murray Straus at the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire.

I completed my doctorate in public policy at the University of Massachusetts and I specialize in areas that primarily concern the effectiveness of social policies, systems responses to social problems, and the intersection of social science with policy. My research interests include social policies that address families of divorce, child maltreatment fatalities, partner violence, corporal punishment, and religiously-motivated medical neglect. I am piloting a research and outreach project concerning the information needs of state legislators. Finally, in 2006 I (with Dr. Nina Glick Schiller) was awarded the UNH President's Excellence Award to study refugee resettlement in New Hampshire. Please browse my research and teaching pages to learn more about my specific scholarly interests.

On a personal note, I reside in Massachusetts with my family and  I completed my undergraduate work in psychology at Clark University in Worcester, MA. In my spare time I enjoy distance running, hiking, traveling, snowshoeing, and reading the biographies of influential U.S. politicians.