Skip to main content

Clark wins prestigious national research achievement award

Assistant Professor Trenette T. Clark, Ph.D., is the winner of the 2015 Society for Social Work and Research Deborah K. Padgett Early Career Achievement Award. Clark was presented the award at a ceremony on Jan. 17 at the SSWR annual conference in New Orleans.

In conferring the award, the Society recognizes that her accomplishments reflect innovative scholarship, a rigorous approach to social work research, and work that exhibits an emerging influence in the field and her contribution to advance the profession is noteworthy.

“I am humbled, honored, and proud to receive the SSWR Deborah K. Padgett Early Career Achievement Award,” said Clark. “As the first Black woman to receive this award, I am especially delighted. I am committed to continuing to use research to improve the lives of children and families.”

Clark’s professional interests include the epidemiology, etiology, prevention, and consequences of adolescent drug use; health disparities; and developmental trajectories over the life-course. Her current projects include a study on drug abuse in biracial youth, which received an $829,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health last year. She is also working to raise drug prevention awareness among parents and children through an initiative she started called, “Chasing Dreams Not Drugs.”

“I am so proud of the work that Dr. Clark has been able to achieve and so early in her career,” said Dean Jack Richman. “The Padgett Award represents national recognition for her research, external funding, teaching and service. She is a wonderful model for what it means to be a successful assistant professor.”

Richman says awards like this also reflect positively on the School as a whole. “We have a supportive faculty who provide mentoring, staff who provide resources for research and proposal development that often lead to funding, and a vibrant research and teaching School climate,” he added.