Our Board

Dr. Gina Chowa conducts research on global social development, particularly the intersection of economic security, workforce development, social protection and financial inclusion and its impact on the well-being of vulnerable and marginalized populations in the Global South. She develops and evaluates interventions that aim to promote gainful employment, meaningful financial inclusion, long-term economic security, and improved health and education outcomes. Her research focuses on employing rigorous methodology to examine causal relationships between holistic economic security interventions and well-being of children, youth, and their families in low-resource communities. Dr. Chowa’s research is informed by more than two decades of global development practice and has informed her teaching in the areas of development theory and practice in global settings, community-based participatory methods, project design and proposal writing, and evidence-based practice in the Global South.

Her current work focuses on nationwide, large-scale experimental demonstrations of economic security interventions and pioneering pilot programs to improve the welfare of marginalized populations including low-income youth, people living with HIV/AIDS, women, poor rural households, and urban slum dwellers. She is a principal investigator of Siyakha a nationwide, cluster-randomized demonstration project that is evaluating the impact of employability and financial capability programs on employment and economic welfare of more than 3,000 youth in all nine provinces of South Africa. She was also the principal investigator of YouthSave Ghana Experiment, another large-scale, cluster-randomized experiment that examined the impact of financial inclusion on the well-being of more than 6,000 youth and their families in eight of Ghana’s ten provinces. Dr. Chowa also piloted AssetsAfrica, an innovative intervention study for rural households in Uganda and Chuma na Uchizi another innovative intervention for people living with HIV in Zambia. She is currently leading groundbreaking research projects in India, Kenya, and the Philippines. Her work has been funded by the MasterCard Foundation, the Ford Foundation, Chronic Poverty Research Centre, University of North Carolina (UNC), National Institutes of Health and UNC Center for AIDS Research, and UNC School of Social Work.

Dr. Chowa’s pioneering global intervention research has earned her multiple honors and awards, including the prestigious Ruth and Philip Hettleman Prize for Artistic and Scholarly Achievement (2014), and Wallace Kuralt Early Career Distinguished Professorship (2016). Dr. Chowa has also been recognized for teaching excellence (2013) and excellence in doctoral students mentoring (2014). Her work has been published in various interdisciplinary and social work journals, including Child and Youth Services, Children and Youth Services Review, International Journal of Educational Development, Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Journal of Socio-Economics, Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research, Social Science Research, and Social Work Research. She also has faculty appointments at the Center for Social Development at Washington University in St. Louis, and the Centre for Social Development Africa at the University of Johannesburg.

Kimberly Reese-Sherman is a licensed Psychotherapist and clinician consultant who prides herself on helping brave people do the hard yet rewarding work they identify that they need to do in order to have the relationships they desire with themselves and others. She also empowers other clinicians with entrepreneurial mindsets to overcome their anxieties and tap into their strengths and abilities to see their goals come to fruition. Kimberly earned her Bachelors in Social Work from Meredith College and Masters in Social Work from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She immediately pursued clinical licensure and worked in various settings (non-profits, community based mental health agencies, group practices) for 8 years before starting her own practice, which she has recently expanded to a group practice-The Reese Collective. Private practice has afforded Kimberly the opportunity to expand her work to include consulting with other clinicians in addition to community engagement opportunities, specifically pertaining to mental health and the Faith community. 

Jennifer Shepard Payne, Ph.D., LCSW, is a Research Scientist and Clinician at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in the Center for Child and Family Traumatic Stress (CCFTS) and the Center for the Neuroscience of Social Injustice. She is also an Assistant Professor in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine with a primary appointment within the Department of Psychiatry, Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. She serves as the Coordinator of the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) clinical services within the adult segment of CCFTS.

She received her doctorate in Social Welfare from the UCLA School of Public Affairs and is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with many years of experience in mental health clinical practice and administration. Her research interests include developing culturally tailored community-based depression and trauma interventions and addressing minority mental health disparities.  For several years, Dr. Payne has been working on culturally tailoring Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for African American communities experiencing racial trauma. She developed a culturally-tailored ACT intervention called POOFÒ and is training and consulting on the model: www.POOF-PullingOutOfFire.com

Additionally, she is a board member of MEND, an international organization of clinicians of color who are trauma-trained to help oppressed communities (www.mendminds.org). More information about her is located at www.drjspayne.com.