New School of Social Work faculty member wins national dissertation award

Mitra Naseh, a new assistant professor in Portland State University’s School of Social Work, has won the 2021 Outstanding Social Work Doctoral Dissertation award from the Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR). She received the award at SSWR’s 25th Annual Conference on Jan. 21.

Naseh completed her three-paper Ph.D. dissertation, “A Framework for Understanding Poverty Among Refugees in the United States,” at Florida International University in Miami, Florida. The work was described as “a breakthrough” by Miriam Potocky, Naseh’s doctoral advisor.

“The potential impact of these studies, which have implications for refugee policy and for practitioners, is enormous,” said Paul Stuart, a member of her doctoral committee. The award committee noted the significance of the problem addressed by the research, the rigor of the analysis, and its contribution to knowledge in social work and social welfare.

Naseh’s research is guided by her previous experience as a staff member of non-governmental organizations and United Nations agencies in the Middle East and South Asia. She is the co-author of the second edition of “Best Practices for Social Work with Refugees and Immigrants” (Columbia University Press, 2019) and is also the founding member and research director of the Initiative on Social Work and Forced Migration at Florida International University.

Based in Fairfax, Virginia, SSWR represents more than 200 universities and institutions from 45 states and 15 countries. The SSWR awards program has been recognizing excellence since 1996. Naseh is the second Portland State faculty member to win the SSWR award after Antonia R. G. Alvarez, social work faculty, who received it in 2020.