Anxiety, Depression, Intervention, Mental Health, Military personnel, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Sexual Violence, Stress, Suicide, Trauma
In 2008, Heidi Zinzow joined Clemson鈥檚 College of Behavioral, Social and Health Sciences as an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology, bringing her knowledge as a licensed clinical psychologist into the classroom. Her work addresses factors that put individuals at risk of developing psychological symptoms due to trauma exposure, how to ameliorate related mental health symptoms and what the protective factors are. Applying science to practice and vice versa, she focuses on the development of intervention and prevention programs to improve a victim鈥檚 well-being, quality of life, and occupational and social functioning. Zinzow鈥檚 in-depth understanding of different types of trauma spans sexual assault, interpersonal violence and mass violence. She examines trauma-related mental health outcomes including post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. Additionally, she has moved into substance use disorders 鈥揳nd risky substance use 鈥揳s a mechanism for violence perpetration and exposure. Another stream of her research is suicide prevention: how to develop efficacious programs that improve community members鈥 abilities to identify those at risk, ask difficult questions and provide support. With intervention and prevention program development, she examines technology-based tools such as virtual reality, online methodologies and digital apps to deliver programming. Along with other novel applications of technology to help advance the field, Zinzow looks at the role of social media and the propagation of harmful behavior. In clinical practice, she has analyzed intergenerational transmission of trauma, substance use and mental illness and how these variables affect each other. Working with the military, she has explored mental health and exposure to stress, combat and trauma, including military sexual assault. An as an expert consultant, she has investigated ways to work with communities to better address mass violence exposure. In collaboration, Zinzow has authored over 50 publications in scientific,peer-reviewed journals, which include 鈥淛ournal of Traumatic Stress,鈥 鈥淛ournal of Interpersonal Violence,鈥 鈥淐linical Psychology Review鈥 and 鈥淛ournal of Clinical and Consulting Psychology.鈥 She co-founded Tigers Together to Stop Suicide, currently serves as an expert consultant for the National Mass Violence and Victimization Resource Center, and helps lead Clemson's NSF Tigers ADVANCE initiative to improve campus gender equity. She has received an Emerging Scholar Research Excellence Award and Excellence in Service and Outreach Award, as well as an Outstanding Woman Faculty Member Award from the President's Commission on Women. Before joining Clemson, Zinzow completed a postdoctoral fellowship in traumatic stress with the National Crime Victims Research & Treatment Center at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). In addition to her practice as a licensed clinical psychologist, she has served at many domestic violence and sexual assault centers. In her early career, she worked as a research assistant for Caliber Associates in Northern Virginia, outside of Washington, D.C., evaluating social programs that addressed domestic violence, child maltreatment and juvenile delinquency.
Sexual Violence
Nan Stein, Ed.D., is a senior research scientist at the Wellesley Centers for Women. She has conducted research on sexual harassment/gender violence in K-12 schools and teen dating violence for more than 30 years and co-led the Shifting Boundaries, school-based dating violence prevention program. A former middle school social studies teacher, drug and alcohol counselor, and gender equity specialist with the Massachusetts Department of Education, she has collaborated with teachers鈥 unions and sexual assault/domestic violence agencies throughout the U.S. Stein has authored many book chapters, law review articles, and academic journal articles as well as commentaries for the mainstream media and the educational press, and often served as an expert witness in Title IX/sex discrimination-sexual harassment lawsuits in K-12 schools heard in federal and state courts. She has been featured in scores of print and broadcast media stories. Stein鈥檚 research portfolio has been funded by the National Institute of Justice of the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Department of Education, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Education Association, the Open Society Institute of the Soros Foundation, and other private family foundations. With funding from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), Stein has been studying schools to prevent Dating Violence/Harassment (DV/H). The long-term goal of this study is helping prevent dating violence, sexual violence, and sexual harassment by employing the most rigorous methods to evaluate strategies for altering the violence-supportive attitudes and norms of youth. The study evaluates the relative effectiveness of Shifting Boundaries, a multi-level approach to DV/H prevention programming (in terms of knowledge, attitudes, intended behavior, behavior, and emotional safety of youth participants) for middle school students in 55 middle schools in a large urban school district. Stein is also working with the Justice and Gender-Based Violence Research Initiative Team at the Wellesley Centers for Women to document the current landscape (the breadth and differences) of campus approaches to investigations and adjudication of sexual assault. The project will result in guidelines that will assist colleges with assessing their capacity and preparedness to meet new and existing demands for sexual assault response models. Stein holds a Bachelor of Arts in History from the University of Wisconsin, a Masters of Arts in Teaching from Antioch College Graduate School of Education, and a Doctorate in Education from Harvard University Graduate School of Education. In 2007, she received the Outstanding Contribution to Education award from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education.
Senior Research Scientist; Director, Justice and Gender-Based Violence Research Initiative
Wellesley College, Wellesley Centers for WomenChild Abuse, Criminal Justice, Human Trafficking, Sexual Violence
Linda M. Williams, Ph.D., is a senior research scientist and director of the Justice and Gender-Based Violence Research Initiative at the Wellesley Centers for Women. The focus of her current work is on the justice system response to sexual violence, commercial sexual exploitation of women and children, human trafficking, intimate partner violence, child maltreatment, and prevention of sexual violence on college campuses. Williams returned to WCW after serving as a professor of Criminal Justice and Criminology at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell (2005-2015), where she is now Professor Emerita. Author of many books and scholarly publications, Williams has lectured internationally on sexual violence, commercial sexual exploitation, trauma & memory, and researcher-practitioner collaborations. She served as an invited expert for the first international expert meeting on domestic sex trafficking under the auspices of the National Rapporteur on Trafficking in Human Beings and Sexual Violence against Children in The Hague, Netherlands, and on the National Research Council Panel on Violence Against Women. For the past 42 years, Williams has directed research on violence against women, sexual exploitation of children, sex offenders, and the consequences of child abuse. She has been the principal investigator on 16 U.S. federally funded research projects (and has directed research funded by the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, the National Institute of Mental Health, the U.S. Department of Justice, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of the Navy, and private foundations). Williams earned her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Pennsylvania where she studied at the Center for Criminology and Criminal Law. In 1996 Williams joined the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW) as director of research at the Stone Center. Until her departure in the fall of 2005, she continued her examination of the resilience of women, children, and families. She conducted research designed to understand and prevent the negative consequences of violence against women and children and collaborated on international research and action projects.