Cindy Sousa holds a PhD in Social Work from the University of Washington, where she was a NIMH Prevention Research Trainee. Cindy completed a MPH with a focus in community-orientated public health practice and a graduate certificate in Global Health at the University of Washington and a MSW from Portland State University with a focus in community-based practice.
Cindy’s research centers on investigations of violence, stress and trauma and their relationships to health and well-being. She is especially interested in models that reflect dynamic and cumulative processes of trauma and resiliency wherein individual, family, community, and structural experiences intersect. Her research and teaching interests also include community organizing and community based participatory research; health policy and promotion; positionality, power and anti-oppression in social work; mixed methods research; and global policy, especially community level effects of and responses to neoliberal globalization.
Cindy’s primary research interest is how collective forms of trauma such as disasters and political violence affect individual and population health, and how individuals and collectives recover and withstand these types of trauma. Her current research uses original quantitative and qualitative data collected in collaboration with the Palestinian Medical Relief Society to explore political violence and health among Palestinian women in the West Bank. Within this project, Cindy is also examining how women cultivate resilience using both individual level factors (such as problem solving and utilization of family, religious and political supports) and communal characteristics (such as collective will, cooperation and connection with land).
In addition to her research in Palestine, Cindy has also done research on women, community development and health in rural Nicaragua and on family violence and resilience. Cindy has a number of publications based on her work, including articles in the journals Trauma, Violence and Abuse, the Journal of Interpersonal Violence and Global Public Health and a book chapter in Security Disarmed: Critical Perspectives on Gender, Race, and Militarization.
Cindy’s practice experience includes over eleven years in social service provision and over five years in program management in health education, youth development, advocacy and counseling programs for homeless, immigrant, adjudicated and underserved youth, adults and families.
Cindy provides leadership for our Community Practice, Policy, and Advocacy concentration and teaches Foundation and Community Practice courses. She is also developed and teaches our new course on International Social Welfare. In addition, she is helping with the new dual degree MSS-MPH program.
Email: csousa@brynmawr.edu
Research and Scholarly Interests: Violence, stress and trauma and their relationships to health and well-being.
Substantive Specialization: Collective forms of trauma such as disasters and political violence affect individual and population health, and how individuals and collectives recover and withstand these types of trauma.
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