Image of Dr. Diana Margarita Padilla-Medina
Award: Early Career Faculty Service and Leadership in Social Work Education Award
Assistant Professor at the Beatriz Lassalle Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Puerto Rico
CSWE will present the 2023 Early Career Faculty Service and Leadership in Social Work Education Award to Diana Margarita Padilla-Medina, PhD, assistant professor at the Beatriz Lassalle Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Puerto Rico.
Her areas of research interest and expertise include intimate partner violence and sexual violence in U.S. and global contexts, health and mental health outcomes of intimate partner and sexual violence, and measurement development in intimate partner violence. Her research has been funded by federal and state entities, including PRIDE-NHLBI, Fulbright, and the Texas Council on Family Violence, and she has published and presented in various national and international conferences and academic journals.
Currently, she is leading a PRIDE/NHLBI-funded research project examining the relationship between intimate partner violence victimization and high blood pressure in racially and ethnically diverse women in the United States. Prior to that, she directed a project together with other colleagues from the Rutgers University School of Social Work and the University of Haifa in Israel, which demonstrated the relationship between physical and mental health factors, including COVID-19, and the perpetration and victimization of intimate partner violence in a diverse sample of non-institutionalized adults in the United States.
In addition to her research, Diana has spearheaded the creation of campus-based healing circles to support students and faculty coping with the personal, interpersonal, and structural stressors engendered in the context of experiencing over the past six years, negative and potentially traumatic life events, including devasting hurricanes and earthquakes, a global pandemic, and political and economic hurdles.
Diana earned her PhD in social work from New York University and holds two master's degrees in social work and human rights from Columbia University in New York. She was a former Fulbright U.S. Scholar in Colombia and a visiting scholar at the "Program to Increase Diversity in Behavioral Medicine and Sleep Disorders Research" (PRIDE) sponsored by the Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI).
Her areas of research interest and expertise include intimate partner violence and sexual violence in U.S. and global contexts, health and mental health outcomes of intimate partner and sexual violence, and measurement development in intimate partner violence. Her research has been funded by federal and state entities, including PRIDE-NHLBI, Fulbright, and the Texas Council on Family Violence, and she has published and presented in various national and international conferences and academic journals.
Currently, she is leading a PRIDE/NHLBI-funded research project examining the relationship between intimate partner violence victimization and high blood pressure in racially and ethnically diverse women in the United States. Prior to that, she directed a project together with other colleagues from the Rutgers University School of Social Work and the University of Haifa in Israel, which demonstrated the relationship between physical and mental health factors, including COVID-19, and the perpetration and victimization of intimate partner violence in a diverse sample of non-institutionalized adults in the United States.
In addition to her research, Diana has spearheaded the creation of campus-based healing circles to support students and faculty coping with the personal, interpersonal, and structural stressors engendered in the context of experiencing over the past six years, negative and potentially traumatic life events, including devasting hurricanes and earthquakes, a global pandemic, and political and economic hurdles.
Diana earned her PhD in social work from New York University and holds two master's degrees in social work and human rights from Columbia University in New York. She was a former Fulbright U.S. Scholar in Colombia and a visiting scholar at the "Program to Increase Diversity in Behavioral Medicine and Sleep Disorders Research" (PRIDE) sponsored by the Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI).