Shawna Jo Lee

Shawna Jo Lee serves as Professor and Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs at the University of Michigan School of Social Work, with additional affiliation at the Research Center for Group Dynamics (Institute for Social Research). She directs both the Parenting in Context Research Lab and the Program Evaluation Group at UM-SSW, while co-editing Children and Youth Services Review.

Her research centers on child maltreatment, father-child relationships, and parenting dynamics within low-income families. Key interests include parental discipline strategies, parenting stress mechanisms, family functioning under economic hardship, and fathers' emotional resilience—particularly during crises like the COVID-19 pandemic. Her interdisciplinary work bridges social work, developmental psychology, and public health through mixed-methods approaches.

Recent publications reveal three dominant trends: (1) cross-cultural analyses of gender inequality's impact on child aggression in developing nations, (2) innovative digital interventions for low-income fathers (e.g., text-messaging support programs), and (3) longitudinal investigations linking corporal punishment to adult mental health impairments—advocating for its classification as an adverse childhood experience.

Through the Parenting in Context Research Lab, Lee leads teams examining real-world family stressors and evaluating evidence-based social work interventions. Her Program Evaluation Group specializes in measuring outcomes for community-based parenting initiatives, with emphasis on scalability in resource-limited settings.