Meg Paceley, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Meg Paceley (they/them) is an associate professor at the University of Connecticut School of Social Work, a social worker and scholar engaged in research that examines factors in the social environment (e.g. families, communities) and broader systems (e.g. policies, societal rhetoric) and their relationship to LGBTQ+ youth’s mental health. Dr. Paceley also is the co-director (along with Assistant Professor Gio Iacono) of the QT-RISE (Queer and Trans Resistance, Intervention, Solidarity & Equity) Research Lab.

Dr. Paceley’s research interests include LGBTQ+ youth, health disparities, community organizing, community climate, arts-based research, qualitative research, community-based participatory research, and program evaluation. They aim to identify and evaluate macro strategies (e.g. community organizing and activism, policy advocacy, education) to confront stigma, discrimination, and victimization that contribute to mental health disparities among LGBTQ+ youth.

They embed research in principles of anti-oppressive practice and theoretical frameworks such as social-ecological systems theory, minority stress theory, and critical theories.

Dr. Paceley also utilizes scholarship to impact social work education by examining and evaluating how social work education can be more social justice-driven. Their work in this area has primarily focused on LGBTQ+-inclusion in social work education, as well as broader themes of racial and social justice and trauma informed pedagogies.

Dr. Paceley’s work is published in more than 60 national and international peer-reviewed journals including Journal of Youth Studies, Families in Society, Critical and Radical Social Work, Journal of Social Work Education, among others.

At UConn, Dr. Paceley has taught the Ph.D.-level course Research V: Qualitative Research Methods and MSW-level courses Advanced Macro Practice, and Grassroots Organizing, Macro Foundation Practice.

They earned a Ph.D. and MSW from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign School of Social Work and a BA in psychology from the University of Illinois at Springfield.

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