Cindy Fraga Rizo, Ph.D., will receive the Linda Saltzman New Investigator Award for 2017 at the National Conference on Health and Domestic Violence (Sept. 26–28).
An assistant professor at the UNC School of Social Work (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Rizo focuses her research on interventions for particularly vulnerable intimate partner violence survivors, including Latinas, immigrants and system-involved survivors.
Rizo has collaborated on research, service and training activities with the North Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence, which nominated her for the national award. She is currently working on a project to develop school-based content and protocols for youth at risk for sex trafficking, funded by the Governor’s Crime Commission.
“This is THE award for new investigators in the area in which Cindy and I do research,” noted Rebecca Macy, Ph.D., the professor who mentored Rizo during doctoral studies at UNC. “[This] speaks to Cindy’s commitment to collaborative, community-based research.”
The Linda Saltzman New Investigator Award is sponsored by Futures Without Violence (FUTURES), Raliance and the CDC Foundation. The award recognizes an outstanding new investigator with 2–10 years of experience who is working in the field of domestic violence, violence against women or dating violence.
Criteria for the award include quality of research and implications for the field; commitment to underserved communities; and mentorship and collaboration with fellow researchers, health providers and advocates in the field. The award is named in memory of Linda Saltzman, a senior scientist (1984–2005) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Violence Prevention and the author of several groundbreaking studies in the field.
