M E E T O U R F A C U LT Y
At the School of Social Work, we are committed to building an academic community whose members represent and embrace the diverse cultures, backgrounds and life experiences that reflect the multicultural nature of South Florida and our world.
Dr. Shanna Burke was promoted in August 2021 with tenure to associate professor. Her research focuses on cognition and cognitive impairment, including neurodevelopmental disabilities and neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease. She aims to decrease health disparities by utilizing culturally responsive multi-modal assessment procedures, diagnostic methods, and interventions targeting cognitive impairments and chronic disease across the lifespan. She has published (or has in press) 48 peer-reviewed journal articles—22 of which she is the first author— since August 2015. Dr. Burke was awarded the Social Work Educator of the Year 2021 by the Florida Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers and the Social Work Educator of the Year 2021 by the Miami-Dade Unit of the Florida Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.
Dr. Mario De La Rosa was appointed as an endowed university professor in Health Equity. This recognition is supported by a National Institutes of Health (NIH) $9.5M endowment award that has helped establish a robust health disparities research and training program at FIU. Dr. De La Rosa was also recently selected as a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Roundtable. Dr. De La Rosa is the Director of the Center for Research on US Latino HIV/AIDS and Drug Abuse (CRUSADA) at FIU. He is a pioneering scientist with more than three decades of experience and expertise in substance abuse, HIV/AIDS, and cross-cultural issues affecting Latino populations.
Dr. Hui Huang, associate professor, focuses primarily on developing and evaluating macro-level interventions in child welfare and public health to build evidence-based policy and programs. Dr. Huang is currently co-leading (Co-PI) the external evaluation of the Reducing Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities: Closing the Gap (CTG) grant program awarded by the Florida Department of Health (DOH) Office of Minority Health and Health Equity (OMHHE). The CTG grant program has awarded funds to grantees to stimulate the development of community-based and neighborhood-based projects to improve health outcomes of racial and ethnic populations. The tasks of this evaluation include establishing a broad evaluation infrastructure for the CTG grant program, assessing the success of grantees in achieving the intended goals of the CTG grant program, and expanding the capacity of OMHHE and grantees to evaluate and improve efforts to drive health improvement. She has published 38 peerreviewed journal articles and is the first author on 12 of these articles. She has also published three book chapters.
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