Dr. Edmond is the William E. Gordon Distinguished Professor at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. A nationally recognized expert on violence against women and children, her research tests the effectiveness of trauma focused interventions and the implementation of evidence-based treatments for survivors of sexual violence, intimate partner violence, and childhood abuse.

She is a Fellow and Board member of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare. She serves as a Steering Committee Member of the Center for Holistic Interdisciplinary Research in Psychedelics, and Lead Facilitator on a psychedelic study for the Healthy Mind Lab in the Department of Psychiatry. She currently serves as the Washington University Faculty Senate Council Chair and has held multiple leadership roles within the Brown School, including Interim Co-Dean, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and Associate Dean for Social Work & Social Policy.

Prior to coming into academia, she practiced for 15 years in clinical and administrative roles primarily in domestic violence and rape crisis centers. She is committed to advancing trauma-informed care and innovative mental health treatments.

Amy Eyler studies how policies, along with the built and natural environment, impact chronic disease prevention though behaviors such as physical activity and healthy eating. Her work is focused on evidence-based policy solutions to reduce the burden of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.

She served as the Deputy Director of The Prevention Research Center in St. Louis  for ten years and helped lead the center in managing multiple center projects. Dr. Eyler was the founding leader of the Physical Activity Policy Research Network PAPRN), which was pivotal in advancing an understanding of the impact of policy in this research area.  

She is author of 135 peer-reviewed publications in journals such as American Journal of Public Health, American Journal of Preventive Medicine, and Journal of Public Health Management and Practice. She is author of three books including Research Methods for Public Health  which was published in 2021, with a second edition coming out in 2026.

Dr. Eyler is a leader in the Brown School, throughout the university, and the community. She served as Assistant Dean for Public Health and has had many other leadership roles such as President of the Association for Women Faculty, Chair of Faculty Senate Council, and Faculty Fellow in the Provost’s Office. She is an Executive Board Member and Chair for Girls on the Run St. Louis and volunteers throughout the St. Louis community.

Vanessa Fabbre’s research agenda is driven by several core questions: What are the conditions under which queer and trans people experience wellness in later life? And what does it mean to age well in the context of heteronormativity, transphobia, and other oppressive social forces? Further, what does queer and trans liberation mean in an aging society?

Fabbre’s dissertation research explored gender transitions in later life, focusing specifically on experiences of queer time, failure, and agency in the life course. In collaboration with photographer Jess T. Dugan, Fabbre created To Survive on This Shore: Photographs and Interviews with Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Older Adults (jessdugan.com) which culminated in a book and traveling museum exhibition.

Her current empirical projects pursue these core research questions through interpretive analyses of in-depth biographical interviews with queer, trans, and gender expansive older adults. Fabbre also seeks to develop and promote the practice of queer gerontology for scholar-activists.

Fabbre strives to promote critical and anti-oppressive approaches to social work practice and teaches the following courses at The Brown School: Social Justice and Human Diversity; Direct Social Work Practice with Older Adults; Social, Economic, and Political Environment; and Interpretive Methodology in Social Research.

Shenyang Guo is the author of numerous research articles in child welfare, child mental health services, welfare, and health care. He has expertise in applying advanced statistical models to solving social welfare problems and has taught graduate courses that address event history analysis, hierarchical linear modeling, growth curve modeling, propensity score analysis, and program evaluation. In addition, Guo serves on the editorial board of Social Service Review and as a frequent guest reviewer for journals seeking a critique of advanced methodological analyses.

Guo is a fellow of American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare, and a fellow of Society of Social Work and Research. In addition, Guo serves on behalf of Washington University as the Assistant Vice Chancellor for International Affairs – Greater China, and as the McDonnell International Academy ambassador to China working with Fudan University.

Prior to joining the Brown School, Guo was director of the Applied Statistical Working Group at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Jenine Harris earned her doctorate in public health studies and biostatistics from Saint Louis University School of Public Health in 2008 and currently teaches biostatistics courses in the Brown School public health program. Her recent research interests focus on increasing diversity in data science and improving the quality of research in public health by using reproducible research practices throughout the research process. Jenine’s award-winning 2020 book, “Statistics with R: Solving Problems Using Real-World Data,” is an introductory statistics textbook published by Sage. The book combines statistical concepts with R coding and includes representation of women throughout as both characters and as authors of resources. Each chapter addresses a different social problem using a real-world data set.

Jenine is also an author on more than 90 peer-reviewed publications and developed and published the odds.n.ends R package available on the CRAN. In 2013, she authored “An Introduction to Exponential Random Graph Modeling,” which was published in the Sage Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences series, and was translated into Chinese, and is accompanied the ergmharris R package available on the Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN).

Jenine (Twitter: @jenineharris) is the co-leader of R-Ladies St. Louis, which she co-founded with Chelsea West in 2017 (Twitter: @rladiesstl). R-Ladies St. Louis is a local chapter of R-Ladies Global, an organization devoted to promoting gender diversity in the R community.

Jin Huang is the Irving Louis Horowitz Professor in Social Policy in the Brown School, the co-director of the Center for Social Development, and an internationally renowned expert in the development of social policies that support family and child well-being. His work centers on financial capability and asset building (FCAB) programs for disadvantaged populations, such as low-income children, children with disabilities, children of immigrants, and youth in transition to adulthood. Huang’s research aims for universal policies that offer financial capability and structured asset building for all.

Findings from Huang’s research have contributed to improvements in FCAB policies in the United States, Mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, and elsewhere. His research has appeared in numerous peer-reviewed journals, including JAMA Pediatrics, the American Journal of Public Health, Social Science & Medicine, Social Service Review, and Social Science Research. In 2024, he was named to the Stanford University-Elsevier list of the World’s Top 2% of Scientists in social work.

Huang is a noted leader in the social work profession. A fellow of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare, he serves as a member of the board of directors of Influencing Social Policy and sits on the editorial board of the Journal of Policy Practice and Research. He is also one of the network co-leads of the Grand Challenges for Social Work initiative’s Network to Build Financial Capability and Assets for All. Huang is active in the Society for Social Work and Research, the Council on Social Work Education, the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, and the Financial Social Work Commission of the China Association for Social Work Education.

Huang began his career as a practitioner working with people with disabilities in the United States and China, and that work continues in his research on family-focused interventions.

Recent Media Coverage

What Trump Accounts might do for low-income St. Louisans
St. Louis Magazine, February 4, 2026

Trump lauds Visa’s move to use rewards for savings accounts
Bloomberg, January 28, 2026

What’s the best way to give America’s children $6 billion?
New York Times, December 9, 2025

Huang inducted into American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare
Center for Social Development. January 30, 2025

In China, a new tool for financial social work
Center for Social Development. May 16, 2024

Global conference connects social work, research and policy
Center for Social Development. December 19, 2023

Parents’ views of universal asset-building policies for children
Center for Social Development. December 7, 2023

Evidence, vision for Children’s Account policy at Singapore event
Center for Social Development. November 30, 2023