Assistant Professor Megan Berthold, Ph.D., LCSW, CTS has joined the faculty of the School of Social Work effective fall 2011.

In announcing the appointment of Dr. Berthold, Dean Salome Raheim said, “she brings a rich combination of scholarship, teaching and cross-cultural clinical work with diverse student, community and client populations that will advance the School’s mission”.

Issues of diversity, human rights and social justice are central to Dr. Berthold’s scholarship. Her federally funded research has focused predominantly on the study of the health and mental health challenges of Cambodian/Khmer refugees, as well as clinical outcomes research with survivors of state-sponsored torture from around the world. She has published twelve journal articles, three book chapters and one book. This co-authored book was the winner of the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights in North America Outstanding Book Award in 2000. Dr. Berthold has an impressive record of external funding. Successful federal and United Nations grants that she has co-authored and/or served as co-investigator total over $10 million since 2000.

Dr. Richard A. Wilson, Director of the University’s Human Rights Institute, shares Dean Raheim’s enthusiasm, “Dr Berthold brings an international reputation in human rights research, and her work on torture and refugees from Southeast Asia will deepen and expand existing research and teaching on the University’s human rights program. We are very happy to welcome her to the community of scholars across the University who research and publish on human rights questions.”

In 2009, Dr. Berthold was recognized as the Social Worker of the Year by the National Association of Social Workers.

Dr. Berthold has been engaged in social work for over twenty-three years and graduate education for over a decade. She held an assistant professor position in the Department of Social Work at California State University, Los Angeles for one year. Subsequently, she has served as an adjunct professor, guest lecturer and field instructor for social work students. Her areas of focus include torture and other traumas, mental health, social justice and human rights.

Dr. Berthold has an extensive professional background, which includes clinical, forensic, research, training as well as administrative experience. She spent four years working in refugee camps in Asia, including in a Tibetan refugee camp in Nepal, a first asylum camp for Vietnamese boatpeople in the Philippines, and in a camp for displaced Cambodians on the Thai-Cambodian border. For the past thirteen years, she was a therapist at the Program for Torture Victims in Los Angeles, where for the last eight years, she also served as the Director of Research and Evaluation. Dr. Berthold has also worked as a therapist, psychiatric social worker and clinical program coordinator at other California agencies serving Southeast Asian immigrants and refugees.

Dr. Berthold earned a MSW with a concentration in clinical social work, health and mental health from the University of Utah and a Ph.D. in social welfare from the University of California, Los Angeles.

To hear more about the work that Dr. Berthold has done with the Program for Torture Victims in California:

Four alumni, one faculty member and one student were recently elected to the NASW CT Board and Nominating Committee.

Treasurer – Patricia Schneider, MSW ‘07

MSW Student Representative – Ron Sturm

Member At Large – Rebecca Thomas, Ph.D., MSW

Member At Large – Cheryl Toth, MSW ‘95

Region 2 Representative/Nominating Committee – Stephen Tomczak, MSW ‘94

Region 3 Representative/Nominating Committee – Elizabeth Jucevics, MSW ‘11

Co-chair of the NASW CT-Latino Network until 2013 (Appointed by the President and Executive Director) – Lirio K. Negroni, Ph.D., MSW