by Jose E. Coll
July 8th 2022
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Hello all,
I am happy to announce that Shannon Blajeski has been hired as an Assistant Professor in the MSW Program in the School of Social Work at Portland State University beginning September 16, 2022.
Dr. Shannon Blajeski, PhD, MSW (she/her) is a social work educator and researcher. Her scholarly area of research is concerned with improving public mental health services and practice to be more responsive to the poverty and oppression experienced by adults with serious mental illness (SMI) and disabilities. Her work is framed by critical disability and race theories, emancipatory frameworks, and she embraces lived experience to empower marginalized voices in the co-construction of knowledge. In particular, she is studying the ways that young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds including those from BIPOC families, from low-income backgrounds, and those with low educational attainment, can improve their educational trajectories after developing psychosis and working with early intervention programs. She is currently collaborating with first-episode psychosis programs in Oregon, Washington, and Michigan.
Shannon spent the past three years at the University of Michigan, School of Social Work, where she taught Mental Disorders in Adulthood in the online MSW program and completed a two-year postdoctoral research fellowship where she assisted with an NIMH R01 randomized controlled trial of a virtual job interviewing tool in a community mental health center in Chicago, IL. She has a long history of collaborating on research with young adults with early psychosis with the Regional Research Institute for Human Services at Portland State University and the EASA Center for Excellence at the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health. In addition, she spent approximately ten years assisting with the implementation and training of mental health providers in the Program for Assertive Community Treatment (PACT) model across Washington State. Prior to pursuing a doctoral degree, she worked in various public community mental health centers for eight years.
Shannon received both her MSW and PhD from the University of Washington, School of Social Work in Seattle and is a first-generation college student.
Shannon is a proud mama of a toddler and a Labrador retriever, and she is looking forward to raising both of them in Portland, and in the great outdoors of the Pacific Northwest. She previously lived in Portland and Seattle from 2002-2019 and is excited to return and contribute her passions for social work education and research with the School of Social Work at Portland State University.
Special thanks to our search committee: Stephanie Wahab, Co-Chair, Eddie May, Co-Chair, Bowen McBeath, Lisa Hawash, Susanne Klawetter, Issa Luckett, EPIC Member and search coordinator, John Barnett.
Please join me in welcoming Shannon Blajeski to her new role in the School of Social Work!
Jose E. Coll, MSW Ph.D.
Dean & Professor
School of Social Work
Portland State University