Faculty Spotlight: Dr. Eyitayo Onifade

Dr. Eyitayo Onifade joined the College of Social Work at Florida State University in fall 2010. Dr. Onifade has experience as a victim-witness advocate, juvenile probation officer, and policy analyst/evaluator for child welfare and juvenile justice systems. He earned his MSW from the University of Georgia, where he also worked with the Carl Vinson Institute of Government as an analyst. Dr. Onifade completed his Ph.D. at Michigan State University in the field of Ecological-Community Psychology.

His research has since focused on informal and formal community responses to crime and social injustice. He currently teaches in the policy sequence of the social policy and administration track at the College of Social Work.

He is the principal investigator of a National Science Foundation funded community-based longitudinal study incorporating neighborhood criminogenic factors in delinquency prediction models. The project also entails resource mapping of the community and exploring the role that proximity of resources and services have in encouraging or discouraging juvenile delinquency. The findings of this study are being used to inform community development and juvenile justice policy in the county of interest.