Bernadine Y. Waller, LMHC, Ph.D. Candidate

Bernadine Waller’s research focuses on developing culturally congruent gender-based violence interventions, specifically within marginalized and underserved communities of color.

Her research is influenced by more than 10 years of experience as a clinician, higher education administrator and adjunct faculty in both social work and psychology. Waller’s scholarship is further influenced by her work as a graduate assistant, where she worked to understand the intersections of intimate partner violence and the Black Church, as well as explored Latina immigrant IPV victims and their religious help-seeking. She has published peer-reviewed articles focusing on the methodological concerns of conducting research with vulnerable populations and developing culturally congruent interventions.

Her desire to develop more effective interventions also led to her collaboration with the government of Barbados to analyze a U.N. Women‒developed batterer intervention program. She further utilized her unique clinical lens to present a TEDx Talk, Hindered Help, which led to a Center for Health Innovation‒sponsored symposium featuring Drs. Tricia Bent-Goodley and Natalie Sokoloff, and Op-Ed articles in the Huffington Post.

As a higher education administrator, she has collaborated with the Office of Advancement to secure major donor support, crafted an executive report that led to the development of a University mentoring program, and partnered with the Office of Institutional Assessment to collect and report student outcomes utilized for admissions and reaccreditation.

Waller’s dissertation, Understanding the help-seeking mechanisms of intimate partner violence, was developed in an effort to understand the mental health‒related strengths and resilience of African American women IPV victims. She is passionate about student success and desires to teach organizational context, human behavior, diagnosis, and research methods courses.