Three social work faculty promoted to associate professors

Congratulations to three of our faculty members who have been promoted to associate professors this fall: Annahita Ball, Elizabeth Bowen and Nadine Shaanta Murshid. Ball, Bowen and Murshid joined the UB School of Social Work in 2014 as assistant professors. 

Annahita Ball earned her PhD in social work from The Ohio State University. Her teaching interests are diversity and oppression, social work services in schools, human behavior, and policy. Her research focuses on advancing educational justice, specifically in relation to family engagement in schools, inclusive education, and student support services. She partners with local school districts and community organizations to design, implement, and evaluate initiatives that improve education for WNY youth and families. Ball’s current project focuses on developing anti-racist programming for high school youth.

Elizabeth Bowen earned her PhD in social work from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Bowen is currently leading a NIH-funded study to improve the measurement and understanding of recovery capital for diverse populations of people in recovery from alcohol problems. Her teaching interests include substance use and addictions, social welfare history and policy, community social work, and evidence-based practice. Bowen’s research and teaching are rooted in her social work practice experience, which includes managing harm reduction-based supportive housing programs for homeless and HIV positive individuals in Chicago.

Nadine Shaanta Murshid has also been named interim associate dean for diversity, equity and inclusion and unit diversity officer. Murshid earned her PhD in social work from Rutgers University. Her areas of interest and research include institutions, structural sources of violence, social policy, and health disparities. Her most recent work focuses on experiences of microfinance participation among women in Bangladesh. Some of her current projects include work on migrant workers, garment workers and Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.