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Assistant Professor Robert O. Motley Jr., PhD, MSW, joined the School of Social Work in 2021. He obtained his PhD from Washington University in St. Louis Brown School of Social Work, where he was a National Institute of Mental Health (T-32) Pre-doctoral Fellow. His research examines the intersection of racism, violence, and trauma for Black emerging adults ages 18-29 and associated adverse mental and behavioral outcomes.

With support from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (F31MD013386), and Fahs-Beck Fund for Research and Experimentation, his most recent research employed qualitative and quantitative methods to examine the relationship between exposure to perceived racism-based police use of force, racism-based trauma symptoms, and substance use in a sample of Black emerging adults in St. Louis, Missouri. He looks to identify risk and protective factors that can be targeted by behavioral health intervention programs and advance personal safety practices and policies in America that are respective of equity and human dignity for marginalized emerging adult populations.

Dr. Motley served as the lab manager for the Race and Opportunity lab at the Brown School for five years where he developed administrative processes for lab recruitment and research, oversaw all research projects and events, supervised undergraduate/graduate students, and conducted data analyses and manuscript development for publication. He also coordinated the speaker series for the Journal Club on Race in Science at the Brown School, an interdisciplinary group of doctoral students, postdocs, and faculty who critically examine racial statistics, ethnicity, and culture in social and behavioral research.

Dr. Motley received a Master of Social Work degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago Jane Addams College of Social Work and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Social Work from Northeastern Illinois University. He has presented research findings at national scientific conferences and submitted manuscripts that were accepted for publication in peer-reviewed journals.