Division of Social Work

Neely Mahapatra

Associate Professor

Health Sciences 218
(307) 766-6864 | nmahapat@uwyo.edu

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Education

B.A., Utkal University India
M.S., Utkal University India
MSSW, University of Texas at Austin
Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin

Research Interests

Violence against minority women including immigrant South Asian women; refugees and other immigrant populations; human trafficking; international social work; usage of social network sites and mental health of college students; social and public policy; and social justice

Teaching Philosophy

My teaching philosophy is drawn from my diverse cultural background, social justice value perspective, and constructivist pedagogy with a focus on: (a) individual student's background and development of understanding and beliefs; b) creation of opportunities to determine, challenge, modify, or add to existing beliefs and knowledge through structured tasks; (c) development of student's meta-awareness of their own self and learning processes; and (d) creation of shared understanding of topics through director instruction, text, exploration of other assigned course materials.

Biosketch

Dr. Mahapatra received her Masters degree in Social Work from The University of Texas at Austin in 2003 and then her doctorate in Social Work from UT at Austin in 2008. She then continued a post-doctoral research fellowship with the Institute on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault at UT at Austin under the mentorship of Dr. Noel Bridge Busch-Armendariz.  During this time, she continued her extensive work conducting program evaluations and research studies pertaining to interpersonal violence, including dating violence, intimate partner violence, and human trafficking.

She currently teaches Human Behavior in the Social Environment I and II ('Individual and Families' and 'Larger Systems'), Current Concepts of Domestic Violence, International Interpersonal Violence, Human Rights, Social Policy and Social Justice, Social Work Research, and Research Informed Practice at the undergraduate and graduate levels.  Her overall vision is to invest time in collaboration and development of best practices with women and victimization against minority women and children, men and violence, and facilitate multidisciplinary research in the field of violence and victimization.

Curriculum Vitae