Jenni Harpring focuses on community-engaged teaching, creating collaborative learning environments, advising, and higher education administration. A winner of the Excellence in Advising award, she works intently working with students to achieve their goals.
Throughout her career in community engagement, she has held positions at a public health department, city housing department, and non-profit organizations. She has over 10 years of higher education experience in civic engagement, social work, and public health education.
Harpring draws on over 15 years of professional experiences at the intersection of large decision-making institutions and their surrounding communities to develop field education curriculum. She leads the field education curriculum and is engaged in training field instructors, supporting the field education team on curriculum design and development, and working directly with students in their field placements. In addition to field education, Harpring teaches community-based courses in both the social work and public health programs.
Harpring has appointments at Washington University beyond the Brown School through teaching and serving on various committees. She serves as assistant director of the Beyond Boundaries program which is designed to provide first year students the opportunity to explore topics – from climate change to aging to artificial intelligence – from multiple disciplinary perspectives.
Julie Mastnak is a licensed, board-certified clinical psychologist with more than a decade of clinical experience and a specialized interest in the areas of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and differential diagnosis.
At the Brown School, Mastnak teaches courses in the Mental Health Concentration. She also instructs students pursuing certificates that offer specialized education for working professionals, including the Post-Master’s Certificate Program in Evidence-Based Assessment and Treatment of PTSD in Adults.
Her years of work with evidence-based, trauma-focused psychotherapy have significantly influenced her pedagogy and her approach to helping students prepare for their future. She strives not only to teach, but to inspire her students.
Dr. Molly W. Metzger serves as chair for the Domestic Social and Economic Development concentration within the Master of Social Work program. She is also a faculty director at the Center for Social Development, and a faculty fellow at the Gephardt Institute for Civic and Community Engagement. Metzger’s research focuses on local, state, and federal housing policies, examining how these policies often reproduce patterns of inequity. She strives to build and share research with a host of community partners, in order to move housing policy toward the goals of racial and economic justice.
Metzger’s major projects have included a community-based participatory research project on public housing preservation in Chicago, a national analysis of the “Section 8” Housing Choice Voucher program, and a collaboration with the St. Louis Housing Authority, in which she and her team interviewed Section 8 renters about their housing experiences. Her edited book, Facing Segregation, was published by Oxford University Press in 2018.
Metzger completed a BA in Women’s Studies from Carleton College and a PhD in Human Development and Social Policy from Northwestern University. She serves as a board member at DeSales Community Development and the World Community Center, and is an active member of the Mann Elementary School PTO and St. Louis Public Schools’ Parent Action Council.
Alison Rico has more than a decade of clinical experience and a specialized interest in the areas of mental health within the realms of law, healthcare and foster care. She currently serves as the manager for the Mental Health Concentration in the Office of Field Education.
Rico also teaches foundation practicum and mental health theory courses as well as taking on roles as a mental health curriculum lead and co-chair for the Mental Health Concentration Antiracist Committee.
Rico’s interest in the integration of social work and mental health in addition to her years of work with adults and children have significantly influenced her pedagogy and her approach to helping students prepare to take on the challenge of becoming social workers with diverse and inclusive approaches within the practice of mental health.
After earning her MSW from the Brown School in 2006, Rico worked several years in law and healthcare in several capacities as well as within the foster care community providing individual and family therapy, facilitating workshops and teaching coping and life skills to both adolescents and adults with chronic mental illness. In 2011 Rico started her private practice serving children, youth and families within the adoption and foster care system as well as with the general community providing therapeutic services that assisted clients with managing issues such as depression, anxiety, attachment issues and trauma.
Jewel D. Stafford serves as the Assistant Dean of Practicum Engaged Scholarship and Teaching Professor at the Brown School at Washington University. She is Co-Director of Policy Education and Practice at the Center for Social Development and as the director of the Racial Equity Fellowship Program in the Office of Field Education. She has more than 15 years of practice and research experience working with diverse communities. Her career has focused on training, community-based research, and program planning. Stafford has managed and implemented community-based initiatives that address racial inequities, promote partnerships and improve health outcomes. Her research agenda focuses on examining racial/ethnic health disparities among medically underserved communities, specifically black populations. Current research explores reproductive health, racial equity, and community-engaged research, and she serves on the Board of Planned Parenthood Great Rivers. Before joining the Brown School, she was a research coordinator on NIH-funded grants, administering multiple community-based public health research projects and collaborating with community leaders and researchers to develop culturally appropriate evaluation tools.
Atia Thurman draws on more than 22 years of professional experience and leadership redesigning systems and activating partnerships to drive positive change. As a lecturer at the Brown School, she facilitates learning experiences that emphasize leadership, community-driven practice, and social policy. In her role with the Office of Practicum Education (OFE) she directs that focus toward the Social Impact Leadership and Children, Youth, and Family concentrations, guiding the next generation of social workers to pursue excellence and foster meaningful change in society.
Atia supports the scholarship and practical application of mindful-based principles through her leadership with WashU’s Mindfulness Science and Practice group, and integrates mindfulness in her facilitation of Dialogue Across Difference courses, which foster critical thinking and civil discourse among students. Atia is also a trained coach and serves as a Faculty Coaching Fellow through the Office of the Provost.
Previously, Atia served as the inaugural associate director of the Clark-Fox Policy Institute, where she provided strategic, operational leadership in establishing and advancing the Institute’s mission of creating lasting, systemic change for children and families. During her tenure, she was instrumental in founding the Graduate Policy Scholars program and championing high quality, equitable early childhood education.
A Brown School alum (MSW ’02), her approach to strategic change is rooted in social work principles, catalyzing the strengths of individuals and institutions to address challenges and improve community wellbeing. Her career is characterized by contributions to various interdisciplinary projects, cultivating impactful partnerships and initiatives in the areas of education, health and human services, and community development. Her lifelong mission is to help create a thriving society where individuals can achieve their full potential, and communities enjoy shared peace and prosperity.