Jane Palmer

Adivitional Positions at AU

Director, Community-Based Research Scholars program

Co-Chair, Assessment Committee, Sexual Assault Working Group

SPA Representative, Diversity & Equity AU Core Committee

Degrees

PhD, Justice, Law & Society, American University (with a second field in Public Policy); MSW, Jane Adivams College of Social Work at the University of Illinois at Chicago (with a concentration in children and families); BA in Sociology from Smith College in Northampton, MA

Languages Spoken

English, Spanglish

Favorite Spot on Campus

Bender Library, The Dav

Bio

Jane Palmer has a Ph.D. in Justice, Law & Society from American University, an M.S.W. from the Jane Adivams College of Social Work at the University of Illinois-Chicago and a B.A. in Sociology from Smith College. Before coming to AU for her Ph.D., she was the executive director of a domestic violence agency in St. Louis. She worked for more than a decade in community-based organizations in urban, low-income communities as an advocate, youth program manager and social worker for children and families.

Dr. Palmer is the inaugural director of the Community-Based Research Scholars program. In this role, she oversees a selective, living-learning community of first year students who learn how to conduct community-based research in collaboration with a local non-profit organization in DC. She also oversees the Undergraduate Certificate in Community-Based Research, which is open to all undergraduate students at American University.

Jane Palmer’s own interdisciplinary research focuses on gender-based violence prevention, help-seeking, legal/policy responses to gender-based violence and measurement/methodological issues in research on sensitive topics. Her dissertation was on bystander intervention in sexual assault and intimate partner violence situations on a college campus. She has conducted campus surveys on sexual assault, dating violence and bystander intervention since 2011. She is also working on a research project on the civil legal needs of survivors of sexual assault in collaboration with the Victim Rights Law Center.

Prior to joining the AU faculty full-time, she was a post-doctoral associate at the Center on Violence Against Women and Children (VAWC) at the Rutgers University School of Social Work. From 2010 – 2013, Dr. Palmer was a graduate research fellow at the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice where she was on a small team of individuals responsible for designing and implementing a Congressionally-mandated program of research on violence against American Indian and Alaska Native women living in tribal communities in the U.S. She served as a Technical Advisor on the National Baseline Study under this program of research, which was implemented by American Indian Development Associates and RTI International. She is currently an evaluation consultant for Men Can Stop Rape on a federally-funded project on campus sexual assault prevention and policy initiatives at 8 local universities.

Courses taught: Community-Based Research, Social & Legal Construction of Childhood, Gender Violence & Public Policy, Child & Family Policy, Public Program Evaluation, Qualitative & Survey Research Methods, Introduction to Justice Research Methods and Justice in Tribal Communities.

Spring 2018

IDIS-196 Selected Topics:Non-Recurring: Ecuador: CBRS Intl Serv Proj

JLC-280 Intro to Justice Research

JLC-280 Intro to Justice Research

SPA-340 Community-Based Research

Fall 2018

CORE-107 Complex Problems Seminar: Navigating Childhood

IDIS-101 Community-Based Research Lab

JLC-280 Intro to Justice Research