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Add Brown School News on Google (opens in a new tab)The WashU Brown School has welcomed five new doctoral students this fall, with research interests ranging from aging and health to poverty reduction, child welfare and community-based approaches to social change.
The new social work PhD students are L. Patty Flores, Bethanie Saint Louis, Stella Jendrzejewski, Liz Smith and Zeyi Wu.
L. Patty Flores
L. Patty Flores is a bilingual therapist, researcher, and public scholar whose work bridges clinical practice, research, and advocacy. Her research focuses on system-impacted youth, trauma, and how child-serving systems shape the lives of immigrant and foster youth.
Flores has been featured by SAGE Publications, The Imprint, NBC4, LAist, Univision, and the University of Pennsylvania’s Field Center, where her scholarship and lived experience have contributed to national conversations on child welfare, youth voice, and culturally responsive practice.
As a scholar-practitioner and former foster youth, Flores draws on both her professional expertise and lived experience to inform her research and advocacy. Through her work, she aims to advance policies and practices that strengthen outcomes for children, youth and families.
Bethanie Saint Louis
Bethanie Saint Louis grew up in Haiti, an experience that shaped her commitment to poverty reduction and community-driven development. She brings a background in graduate education and more than a decade of professional experience in international development and social work.
Her research examines how community asset building and participatory, locally driven approaches can reduce poverty and mitigate aid dependency in developing nations. She is particularly interested in how public policy and high-level initiatives within the U.S. government and the international development sector can support sustainable, locally led solutions.
Through her scholarship, Saint Louis aims to inform international social work policy and practice that supports lasting, community-owned change.
Stella Jendrzejewski
Stella Jendrzejewski uses participatory and community-engaged research to examine how stigma and structural power influence health and resilience among historically excluded individuals and communities. Her work also explores how research findings can inform more equitable interventions.
Jendrzejewski’s clinical and research experience includes work with sex workers and survivors of trafficking in the sex industry, queer and transgender individuals, gender-affirming health care, young adult cancer survivors, and harm reduction related to substance use.
Before entering the Brown School’s PhD program, Jendrzejewski earned bachelor’s degrees in psychology and philosophy from Fordham University and a master’s degree in counseling psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University.
Liz Smith
Liz Smith earned a Master of Social Work from the Brown School with a concentration in mental health and a specialization in older adults and aging societies. She has worked in direct care and community-based settings supporting adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Her research interests focus on aging, caregiving and resilience. Smith hopes her work will contribute to changing perceptions of aging and caregiving, including the understanding that aging itself is not a disability and that resilience can be developed before people face major loss or life changes.
Zeyi Wu
Zeyi Wu earned bachelor’s degrees in social work and economics from Nankai University and a Master of Social Work from the Brown School. She spent seven years working in a subsidized senior housing community in the San Francisco Bay Area, providing supportive services to older adults from diverse socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds.
Wu became a licensed clinical social worker in 2024. Her research focuses on social and environmental factors that affect the health and well-being of older adults.