Dr. Sheretta T. Butler-Barnes is Professor and Dean’s Distinguished Professorial Scholar at Washington University in St. Louis (WashU) Brown School of Social Work, with affiliations in African and African American Studies and the Division of Data and Computational Sciences. She is currently pursuing a Master of Science in Biomedical Data Science at Meharry Medical College, advancing an integrated program of research at the intersection of developmental science, population health, and computational analytics.
A developmental psychologist, Dr. Butler-Barnes investigates how racialized stress exposures, including interpersonal racism, vicarious exposure to racial violence, and social media-based experiences shape and culturally grounded coping processes shape developmental and health trajectories among Black youth and families. Her work centers family systems as critical contexts through which risk and resilience processes unfold, linking early life experiences to well-being, educational outcomes, and risky behaviors, as well as chronic disease risk across the life course.
Her research program is organized around two integrated areas:
1) Black Families, Racialized Stress, and Developmental Health
This line of work examines how racialized stress exposures and protective family processes, including racial socialization and coping self-efficacy, influence Black Americans well-being, educational outcomes, and risky behaviors, with particular attention to Black women and girls’ development. This research advances culturally responsive, developmentally grounded models that account for both vulnerability and resilience within family, school, and community contexts.
2) Cardiovascular Health and Structural Inequities
This emerging line of research builds on her prior work on racial stress and coping to examine how structural racism and chronic psychosocial stress contribute to cardiovascular risk, including hypertension and congestive heart failure, among Black populations. Her work emphasizes the role of stress physiology, coping mechanisms, and social determinants in shaping long-term health disparities.
Across both areas, Dr. Butler-Barnes leverages biomedical data science approaches—including advanced statistical modeling and population health analytics—to examine multilevel pathways linking social experiences to health outcomes. Her work aims to inform interventions and policies that reduce disparities and promote health equity across the lifespan.
She previously served as the Inaugural Sojourner Truth Visiting Professor of Racial and Social Justice at Rutgers University School of Social Work (2023–24). Dr. Butler-Barnes earned her PhD and MA in psychology from Wayne State University and her BS in psychology from Michigan State University.
Leopoldo J. Cabassa, MSW, Ph.D. is a Puerto Rican social worker. He is the Co-Director of the Center for Mental Health Services Research at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work and the Co-Director of the Center for Holistic Interdisciplinary Research in Psychedelics at Washington University in St. Louis.
His research centers on examining physical and mental health inequities in historically marginalized racial and ethnic populations with serious mental illness (SMI; e.g., schizophrenia, major depression, bipolar disorder). His work blends quantitative and qualitative methods, health disparities research, community engagement, intervention research, and implementation science.
His research has been supported by the National Institute of Mental Health, the New York State Office of Mental Health, the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, SAMHSA, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Dr. Cabassa is a fellow of the Society for Social Work and Research.
His book Addressing Health Inequities in People with Serious Mental Illness: A Call to Action won the 2025 Society for Social Work and Research Book Award. His scholarship is making significant contributions in four areas:1) improving depression literacy and reducing stigma toward mental illness in the Latino community; 2) reducing physical health inequities in racial/ethnic minoritized and historically marginalized communities with SMI; 3) improving the health and well-being of young adults experiencing first-episode psychosis; and 4) studying the implementation of psychedelic-assisted therapies in routine practice settings.
His long-term career goals are to establish a program of research and training that focuses on understanding the factors that fuel inequities in health and mental health care and use this knowledge to inform the development and implementation of interventions to reduce disparities.
Heather Cameron develops and teaches a transdisciplinary curriculum in social innovation and entrepreneurship, advises students at the masters and doctoral levels, builds career and enterprise pipelines, and pursues research on comparative urban education and development, and social impact strategies.
Cameron has served on the faculties of Free University of Berlin and the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. She was honored by the German Association of University Professors and Lecturers as Professor of the Year for her extraordinary teaching, engagement and innovation.
She is also the founder of several prize-winning social enterprises in the fields of education and sports for community development, including Boxgirls and Camp Group, a winner of the Google Impact Challenge for its educational tool for refugee children. In 2010 she was recognized for her work as a social innovator with an Ashoka Fellowship. She continues to work all over the world as an advisor and evaluator of development and education projects, most recently for the Ministry of Education in Afghanistan.
She completed post-doctoral studies on technology and public space at the Technical University of Berlin.
Lorien Carter brings her years of direct social work practice experience into the classroom to teach several graduate-level Social Work Practice and Administration courses.
She serves on the MSW Program and Curriculum Committees as the chair of the foundations curriculum, and has received the Brown School’s Excellence in Teaching faculty award on four occasions.
In 2015, Carter founded an instructional coaching initiative to enhance teaching excellence at the Brown School. She has also co-trained more than 300 local field instructors in the Brown School’s evidence-based practice model.
Carter has 10 years of direct practice experience with adolescents, as well as program coordination and management experience in public school and health care settings. She provides performance management consultation services through EMD Consulting Group. Carter is a trainer and curriculum writer for Wyman Center’s Teen Outreach Program as well as an executive board member for Youth Be Heard, a national non-profit that elevates youth voice through creative expression. She is a past executive board member and current committee member for Missouri’s Teen Pregnancy & Prevention Partnership.
Carter is a highly sought after facilitator for agency staff trainings on topics related to adolescent development, group work facilitation, logic models, the adult learner model and professional team-building.
Yung Chun (he/him) is a Research Assistant Professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, the Director of Data Insight at the Center for Social Development, and Weidenbaum Center Research Fellow with Washington University’s Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy. His research focuses on how housing and education policies shape social and economic mobility, especially for families living in poverty and communities of color.
He studies how built environments and social systems interact to influence people’s life outcomes. His work includes evaluating the impacts of large-scale federal housing programs like the Choice Neighborhoods Initiative and analyzing education programs designed to help low-income students and adult learners succeed. He uses advanced statistical and spatial methods to answer real-world policy questions and collaborates closely with community organizations and national partners.
His current projects explore the effects of housing relocation, school choice, case management, and informal STEM training on family stability and upward mobility. He has also led major studies on racial disparities in housing instability during the COVID-19 pandemic, the long-term impacts of mortgage assistance programs, and how apprenticeship programs can improve well-being.
His research has informed public debates and policy decisions, including testimony before the U.S. Senate and the Maryland House of Delegates. His work has been cited by organizations such as the Brookings Institution and featured in public radio coverage.
Brett Drake researches matters of child welfare with a focus on early intervention cases of child neglect as well as the connections between socio-environmental conditions and child neglect. His current research analyzes census and child protective data to assess the efficacy of protective and preventative services.
His research and his many years of child welfare practice, at the direct and clinical levels, inform the master’s-level courses he teaches at the Brown School. The topics of these classes range from diversity and human behavior to analysis of practice.
In addition, Drake teaches doctoral classes on research methodology, due to his interest in the philosophical and theoretical aspects of social work research. He also consults with a number of state and local agencies regarding evaluation and administrative data.