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Award-winning professor Chowa delivers Hettleman lecture

UNC School of Social Work Associate Professor Gina Chowa, a winner of UNC’s prestigious 2014 Phillip and Ruth Hettleman Prize for Artistic and Scholarly Achievement by Young Faculty, delivered her Hettleman Lecture on April 7, 2015, in the Tate-Turner-Kuralt building auditorium.

Chowa spoke on, “Rethinking pathways for the poor in resource-limited countries: Testing integrated interventions.”

The Hettleman Prize, which carries a $5,000 stipend, recognizes the achievements of outstanding junior tenure-track faculty or recently tenured faculty.
Chowa is known as a rising star within the field of asset building because of her groundbreaking work in examining the effects of asset ownership on youth and families in developing countries.

With her background as a practitioner working with poor families in Africa, Chowa saw how families with few resources struggled with keeping their children in school and envisioned a future of poverty, while people who owned assets invested in their children’s education and planned for the future. She found that this same pattern is repeated in future generations.

Chowa, who came to Carolina in 2008, has designed experiments and randomized controlled trials in four countries to test the impact of assets on a range of development outcomes for young people. One leader in the field said Chowa’s knowledge and experience in asset building was unparalleled within the field of social work.

“Dr. Chowa is truly a change-maker in international social work, and I have every expectation that she will continue along this exceptional path,” said School of Social Work Dean Jack Richman.