Husain Lateef centers culturally responsive research to inform social work practice, prevention, and interventions with youth populations of African descent. His scholarship incorporates the advancement of both theoretical inferences for working with Black youth and rigorous science to explore the relationship between Afrocentric constructs and transitional success of Black youth through adolescence (ages 13-17), and emerging adulthood (ages 18-29). In 2023, Lateef officially launched the Afrocentric Youth Development Lab (AYDL), dedicated to expanding the knowledge base of Afrocentric youth research to inform Social Work practice with Black youth.
Lateef’s research also intersects with his practice experience working with serious juvenile offenders by advancing scholarship to inform reentry for this population post-conviction. Before joining the Brown School in 2019, he served as the social work supervisor for the Arizona Justice Project’s Reentry Team, one of Arizona’s first reentry programs assisting juveniles serving life-without-parole before the Supreme Court found many of those sentences unconstitutional.
Lateef is also a faculty affiliate with the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity & Equity (CRE2), a faculty scholar in the Institute for Public Health, and a faculty affiliate with the Institute Clinical & Translational Sciences (ICTS). Courses taught by Lateef include Social Welfare Policy and Services and Criminal Justice-Involved Adults: Practice & Policy Interventions.
Phillip Marotta’s research focuses on the impact of the criminal justice system on disparities in public health, with an emphasis on substance use treatment interventions in justice-involved populations and the HIV care continuum for justice-involved persons with substance use disorders.
Marotta examines medication-assisted treatments for opioid use disorder (OUD) in jails and prisons. A current project evaluates the effects of methadone treatment during custody on recidivism and overdose among recently discharged individuals.
Marotta recently received a National Service Award to examine the role of criminal justice involvement in retention, injection and sexual HIV risk behaviors, using data from three HIV prevention clinical trials with people who use drugs.
Two of his current projects seek to measure the impact of racial and ethnic discrimination on treatment. The first assesses if social support can moderate the unmet need, driven by discrimination, for substance use treatment for justice-involved people. The second investigates how the attitudes of law enforcement toward harm reduction policies impacts their behavior toward people with OUD in Tijuana, Mexico.
Prior to his time at the Brown School, Marotta was a postdoctoral research fellow at Yale School of Medicine.
Mary M. McKay joined the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis as dean in 2016, continuing the School’s legacy of creating vital knowledge, initiating social change, and preparing leaders to address social and health challenges both locally and globally.
McKay’s academic experience connects deeply to both social work and public health. She has received substantial federal funding for research focused on meeting the mental health and health prevention needs of youth and families impacted by poverty. She also has significant expertise in child mental health services and implementation research methods, as well as over 20 years of experience conducting HIV prevention and care-oriented studies, supported by the National Institutes of Health.
She has authored more than 250 publications on mental and behavioral health, HIV/AIDS prevention and urban poverty, and more. In January 2021, Mary McKay was appointed vice provost of interdisciplinary initiatives in the Office of the Provost and stepped down as dean in 2022. Mary served as the Executive Vice Provost from 2024 – 2026.
Prior to joining the Brown School, McKay was the McSilver Professor of Social Work and the inaugural director of the McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research at New York University’s Silver School of Social Work. She previously served as the head of the Division of Mental Health Services Research at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Her prior academic appointments include Columbia University and University of Illinois at Chicago.
Caitlin McMurtry (she/they) uses interdisciplinary theories and methods to examine the structural determinants of health and well-being in America, especially among historically oppressed groups. Her current research focuses on the magnitude of political polarization during disease outbreaks, the structural origins of (dis)trust in government and its relationship to gun ownership and medical distrust, and the role of ballot initiatives in health policy and politics. Broadly, her research seeks to understand how public opinion, politics, and government affect health inequities (and vice versa) in the U.S.
McMurtry’s experience working with officials at all levels of government sharpened her focus on the need for timely, actionable research that is accessible to policymakers and the public. From 2009-2013, she conducted public health research and translated findings for Kansas legislators in Topeka and helped to establish, fund, and run a community health coalition for the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas. Later, she interned for a member of the U.S. Senate and joined a team of researchers conducting rapid-response survey research during the COVID-19 pandemic for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) under the Trump and Biden administrations.
McMurtry’s research has appeared in peer-reviewed academic journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, the American Journal of Public Health, Annals of Family Medicine, Health Affairs, and Milbank Quarterly, and it has received coverage in news outlets such as the Washington Post and NPR. McMurtry teaches courses on social work, health policy, and gun violence, and in 2024, McMurtry received the Teaching Excellence Award for Full-Time Faculty at the Brown School. She also co-leads the Medical School’s Advocacy and Global Health EXPLORE Pathway and co-instructs a course on Infectious Diseases and Health Equity. McMurtry is a faculty affiliate of the Center for Advancing Health Services, Policy & Economics Research (CAHSPER) and the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity & Equity (CRE2), where she was a Spring 2025 Faculty Fellow and the inaugural recipient of the Adrienne Davis Award for Excellence in Research, Scholarship, and Community Engagement in 2026.
Nancy Morrow-Howell is an international leader in gerontology, known for her work on productive engagement of older adults. Her research contributes to knowledge about programs, policies and organizational arrangements that maximize the productive engagement of older adults while promoting positive outcomes for the individuals themselves. Her research documents outcomes for individual, families, and communities associated with work, volunteering, and caregiving by older adults. Her interests include the development of the Next Move initiative, now a part of WashU for Life, where older adults are facilitated in transitions to new roles in employment, volunteering or education.
At the Brown School, Morrow-Howell teaches gerontology courses. She also teaches a freshman course on aging, aimed at increasing young people’s understanding about long life and the need for social transformation. She directed the university’s Harvey A. Friedman Center for Aging from 2012 to 2026 and continues to serve as Senior Advisor to the Center.
She has received Washington University Distinguished Faculty Award and the Brown School’s Outstanding Faculty Award. In 2008 and 2011, she was given the Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award by Washington University. She was the recipient of the 2011 Career Achievement Award from the Association for Gerontology Education in Social Work and of the 2013 Distinguished Career Achievement Award from the Society for Social Work and Research.
Dr. Morrow-Howell is past president and fellow of the Gerontological Society of America. She is a member of that organization’s national advisory committee for The National Center to Reframe Aging well as the Age-Inclusive University Workgroup. She was awarded the Maxwell A. Pollack Award for Contributions to Health Aging and the Barbara Berkman Award for Outstanding Interdisciplinary Research, Practice or Policy, both from the Gerontological Society of America.
Mitra Naseh is a forced migration scholar, currently serving as an Assistant Professor and the Founding Director of the Forced Migration Initiative (FMI) at the Brown School, Washington University in St. Louis. Her research focuses on the multidimensional social and economic integration of forcibly displaced populations, shaped by her interdisciplinary academic training, lived experience as an immigrant, and extensive fieldwork with non-governmental organizations and United Nations agencies, particularly in the Middle East and South Asia.
Naseh is the co-author of the widely recognized book Best Practices in Social Work with Refugees and Immigrants, published by Columbia University Press in 2019. Her emerging body of research has been supported by foundations and federal agencies, including the Russell Sage Foundation and the Missouri Foundation for Health. In the U.S., her recent work explores structural barriers that refugees face in accessing initial services as newly arrived Missourians and involves co-designing community-led solutions to address these barriers. Internationally, she is leading a study in Türkiye that evaluates the implementation outcomes and preliminary impacts of a combined low-intensity psychological intervention and cash assistance program on stress and anxiety among Afghan asylum seekers in Kayseri.
In addition to her research, Naseh is actively engaged in academic service. She currently co-chairs the Immigrants and Refugees Cluster of the Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR) and previously served on the Executive Committee of the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM). Her community engagement includes serving on the Advisory Board of the International Institute Community Development Corporation (IICDC) and formerly as an Executive Committee Member of the Immigrant Service Providers Network (ISPN) in St. Louis.