Doctoral Candidate to Join University of Houston Faculty

Jessica Bagneris is a doctoral candidate in the College of Social Work’s Doctoral Program and will join the faculty of the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work as a tenure-track faculty.

“I am so excited to begin my new position! I feel connected with the work, interests and values of my future colleagues,” expressed Jessica. “I am excited to build a connection with a larger community of the university and City of Houston. It truly is a good fit for me.”

Jessica is most eager to teach a curriculum that values anti-racist practices and liberatory frameworks, which provide language, theoretical frameworks, history and contexts to address access, diversity, inclusion and equity in social work research, education and practice.

Her research focuses on improving outcomes for marginalized children and families. She has focused this work most recently on developing a transformative Social Emotional Learning Intervention that aid teachers in developing skills to promote social-emotional outcomes in all students. Her research aims to make educational experiences and outcomes more equitable and inclusive.

“Teachers need to be equipped with the knowledge and skills to examine their biases, to replace inequitable practices and create inclusive learning environments,” she explained in a feature on her in the College of Social Work’s magazine, Communitas. “Not every student experiences social-emotional learning equitably. Research suggests that Social Emotional Learning may miss a vital component, sociocultural context, which is necessary for personal development, particularly for marginalized populations.”

Throughout her doctoral program at FSU, Jessica has focused on interdisciplinary research to improve outcomes for marginalized populations, working with faculty across the university. She has worked on several studies with her major professor Dr. La Tonya Noël, an association professor at the College of Social Work, targeting the mental, emotional and behavioral health of young children.

She also worked with a team of researchers at the FSU College of Nursing and across the country on research addressing health disparities impacted by discrimination and demographically-related experiences. With researchers from the FSU College of Education, she assisted with technology-based research interventions supporting children of color in school settings.

She has also remained active within the College of Social Work in the Social Work Doctoral Student Organization. She currently serves as president and the doctoral program committee representative, working with her fellow doctoral students on creating opportunities for connection and collaboration. As a doctoral student, Jessica recalls that she especially enjoyed mentoring incoming students as they settled into their doctoral program.

She will defend her dissertation this spring titled, “Development and Implementation of a Socioculturally Transformative Intervention for Pre-Service Teachers: A Randomized Control Trial” which is focused on a pilot study on the first component of a larger intervention series focusing on improving pre-service teacher’s efficacy in equity-based and trauma-informed education. “A major component of my larger research agenda is to develop the entirety of the intervention as well as conduct more interdisciplinary research to understand and intervene upon the disparate effects of discrimination, social and cultural determinants of health and trauma.”

Throughout her research, Jessica remains committed to addressing the trauma experienced by minority and marginalized populations. Additionally, she hopes to develop, identify and implement interventions that help these populations to build resiliency and reduce health disparities.

Jessica will step into her new position in fall 2022 eager to share her research and passion for social justice in educational settings with her colleagues and students.

She earned her master’s in social work from Tulane University and her bachelor’s degree from Baylor University in psychology.