Center on Trauma & Adversity

The Center on Trauma & Adversity research cluster was established to bring together faculty, community partners, and students committed to advancing trauma-informed, healing-centered research. Trauma and adversity are not isolated events—they are shaped by histories, systems, and lived experiences. From interpersonal violence and environmental injustice to structural racism and generational poverty, adversity influences health, development, and opportunity across the lifespan. However, communities also hold deep reservoirs of resilience. Cultural traditions, mutual aid networks, and community-driven healing practices offer powerful pathways to recovery, resilience, and collective well-being. CoTA exists to honor and amplify these strengths while generating research that addresses the root causes and consequences of trauma.

Faculty across UM-Flint are already leading innovative work in trauma-responsive practice, pedagogy, and research. CoTA provides a home to unify these efforts, deepen interdisciplinary collaboration, and advance systems-level change. CoTA welcomes collaboration with faculty, staff, students, and community partners whose work aligns with trauma and adversity, resilience, culturally responsive care, healing-centered engagement, or equity-driven research.

Those interested in collaborating with CoTA or becoming a member should contact the CoTA director, Katie Russell, at karusse@umich.edu.

Research Objectives

As a research cluster, CoTA focuses on three key areas:

Advancing Trauma-Informed and Healing-Centered Research

Conducting research that deepens understanding of trauma, adversity, resilience, and healing across ecological systems, producing evidence that informs practice, policy, and systems change.

Fostering a Collaborative, Interdisciplinary Community

Supporting interdisciplinary collaboration and scholarship by creating a space for connection, shared learning, and relationship building among faculty, staff, students, and community partners.

Strengthening Community-Engaged Scholarship

Co-creating knowledge and interventions with those most impacted by trauma, honoring lived experience as a vital source of insight and innovation. Prioritizing inclusive, equity-driven partnerships with local agencies, school districts, health systems, and community organizations.

Members

Katie Russell, PhD, LMSW/LISW-S, MSSA, CCRP

Social Work Department
Director, Center on Trauma & Adversity
karusse@umich.edu

Katie Russell is the Director of CoTA and an Assistant Professor of Social Work. Her research focuses on healing-centered, socially just approaches to trauma-informed inquiry, with an emphasis on identifying risk and protective factors that shape how trauma is experienced across ecological contexts. Through authentic community engagement, she examines the conditions that mitigate or exacerbate the impact of adversity and translates these insights into prevention and intervention strategies that promote resilience, equity, and collective well-being. Grounded in her background as a trauma therapist, her work integrates relational and culturally responsive frameworks to advance research that contributes to healing.

Cait L. Braxton, MSW, LMSW-Clinical

Social Work Department
caitllsm@umich.edu

Professor Cait Braxton is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Social Work and the BSW/MSW Practicum Specialist at the University of Michigan-Flint. Through classroom instruction, field education, and mentorship, she prepares the next generation of social work practitioners while seeking to better understand the experiences of emerging helping professionals and what best supports their growth. Her research centers on professional identity formation in social work education, with particular attention to the conditions that shape student wellbeing, readiness, and competency development. A licensed clinical social worker, she draws on practice experience spanning inpatient psychiatric care, community mental health, and youth-serving organizations to inform her work with students and the field.

Kayla Bueby, MSW, LMSW-C, ACC

Social Work Department
kmfree@umich.edu

Professor Kayla Bueby is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Social Work and Practicum Education Coordinator at the University of Michigan-Flint. A licensed clinical social worker with extensive experience in higher education mental health settings, her work centers on trauma-informed practice and the mental health needs of college students, with particular attention to the preparation and well-being of social work students entering complex practice environments. Her clinical background includes supporting survivors of trauma and providing supervision and training for emerging professionals. Her scholarly and teaching interests focus on trauma-informed social work education, student resilience, and innovative training approaches that help future practitioners develop the skills and confidence needed to navigate difficult conversations and emotionally demanding practice.

Sam Hilbert, PhD

Department of Education
hsamant@umich.edu

Sam Hilbert is an Assistant Professor of Education whose work focuses on inclusive education, neurodiversity, and the ways adversity influences learning. Their research examines how educators can create responsive learning environments that support students with disabilities while addressing the impact of diversity on development and engagement. Through teacher preparation, research, and community partnerships, Sam works to expand inclusive and supportive opportunities for children, families, and educators.

Julie Jacob, DHSc, MSOT, OTRL

Occupational Therapy Department
jjjacob@umich.edu

Julie Jacob is a Clinical Associate Professor and Program Director of the Doctor of Occupational Therapy program at the University of Michigan–Flint. Her research interests focus on trauma-informed care, occupational justice, and interdisciplinary education, with particular attention to vulnerable populations including survivors of human trafficking, incarcerated individuals, and at-risk youth. She is actively engaged in community-based and international partnerships that support recovery, resilience, and meaningful participation.

Julie Ma, PhD, MSW

Social Work Department
majul@umich.edu

Julie Ma’s research interests center around the effects of parental physical violence and cultural norms that endorse such violence on children’s well-being, both locally and globally. She is also deeply interested in the impact of both adverse childhood experiences and positive childhood experiences. Her ongoing research explores the relationships between parental physical abuse, positive parenting practices, and the social-emotional development of young children, with the goal of identifying and promoting approaches that foster positive outcomes for families.

Marra Robert, OTD, OTRL

Occupational Therapy Department
marrac@umich.edu

Marra Robert is the Doctoral Capstone Coordinator and Clinical Assistant Professor in the Occupational Therapy Department at the University of Michigan-Flint. She is a national board-certified occupational therapist and licensed practitioner in the state of Michigan. She enjoys mentoring students in the development of their Doctoral Capstone Projects and witnessing the positive impact their work has on the communities.

Jeremy Singer, PhD

Department of Education
jersing@umich.edu

Jeremy Singer is an assistant professor of educational leadership and policy at the University of Michigan-Flint. As a researcher, he focuses broadly on the intersections between education policy and racial and socioeconomic inequality. His research has addressed topics such as chronic absenteeism, school choice, poverty and education, school transportation, housing and education, and school improvement. He is the co-author, with Sarah Lenhoff, of the book Rethinking Chronic Absenteeism.

Kristi Wilson, PhD, RN, MSN, FNP-BC, CAFCI

School of Nursing
kigeorge@umich.edu

Kristi Wilson’s research interests center around the EcoJustice Education theoretical framework that links the ecological crisis to a social/cultural crisis. In other words, hierarchizing care of humans (or what we define as human) over care of the environment (i.e., trees, soil, air, water) causes a crisis that affects us all, including our bodies. The methodology used is one that applies a cultural ecological analysis and a critical discourse analysis to expose dominant discourses that hierarchize certain groups of living things over another. Discourses also define what it is to be a good worker, including a nurse which is the profession Kristi has worked within for 40 years. Kristi is interested in how these discourses play out in our culture, including the definition of health as merely the absence of disease.

Scholarship Spotlight

Textbook by Jeremy Singer, PhD

Rethinking Chronic Absenteeism identifies chronic absenteeism (often defined as missing 10 percent or more of instructional days) as an issue of social and economic inequality as much as an educational one. The authors explore the role of K–12 schools and other organizations in solving this growing problem. The book is based on research conducted over eight years as part of a research-practice partnership with urban school systems in Detroit. Their results show the challenges of relying on school-based approaches to improve attendance, particularly in high absenteeism contexts where the causes of absenteeism are due to inequalities that are outside the scope of schools or districts to address. The book calls for broader societal change with recommendations for how policymakers, district and school leaders, and community partners can together adopt a more ecological approach to attendance.