Kerry Lee

Kerry A. Lee is an Assistant Professor at the Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research. Kerry’s research centers around understanding the factors related to family violence perpetration among racial and ethnic minorities and other marginalized populations. To date, Kerry’s scholarship has been conducted using quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods research designs and international and US-based samples and focuses on four overarching areas: (1) family violence; (2) trauma/child maltreatment; (3) substance abuse; and (4) mental wellbeing/illnesses regarding the functioning of children, adults, and families. Kerry's research agenda is primarily driven by the need to better understand the experiences and impact of racial/ethnic minority groups who are often excluded from research despite having myriad experiences with various trauma and structural and economic disadvantages. Kerry's research has been published in the Journals of Interpersonal Violence; Trauma, Violence, and Abuse; Child Abuse & Neglect; Child Abuse Review; Sociological Studies of Children and Youth; Violence & Victims; and Social Work Research.

Post completion of her Ph.D., Kerry worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow under the mentorship of Drs. Brenda Jones Harden and Nathan Fox at the University of Maryland, College Park. As a Postdoctoral Fellow, Kerry managed a National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA)-funded (PI: Nathan Fox) study that sought to examine the impact of early-life adversity (e.g., trauma, substance use, poverty, and other environmental factors) on children's brain development and subsequent health and cognitive, social, behavioral, and emotional outcomes for children and their families.

Kerry also has extensive teaching experience at the bachelor's and master's levels that includes a mixture of face-to-face, online, and hybrid formats. Kerry utilizes a holistic approach to teaching. She capitalizes on appropriate information from the literature, her research, and practice knowledge to guide her teaching-learning experience in an effort to achieve her dual role of educating students and creating new knowledge. Kerry’s approach to teaching is student-centered, where she utilizes diverse, equitable, inclusive, engaging, multidisciplinary, and multicultural strategies that foster a welcoming environment for all her students. Kerry purposely incorporates an intersectional lens in her teaching with the use of activities and reading materials that honor the diversity of identities, experiences, perspectives, and thoughts while exploring matters of privilege, oppression, marginalization, and discrimination.