by Chris Hilburn-Trenkle
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Social Work made history when it established its doctoral program in the fall of 1993, becoming the first doctoral social work program in the state. Since that time, the program’s impact has grown immeasurably to position itself and its students at the forefront of cutting-edge research.
To celebrate our students, we are spotlighting each of our doctoral students set to graduate in 2025, highlighting their areas of research, providing a link to their resume and more.
Research Interests: Psychological resilience and role performance among active duty military personnel and families; racialized and ethnic service member mental health, psychosocial and spiritual mechanisms for human flourishing; adverse childhood experiences among U.S. military personnel and families; barriers to well-being among active-duty military personnel and families; meaning making, and religion-informed, evidenced-based treatments for trauma.
Kenny Harris is a Ph.D. student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Social Work. His research focuses on the well-being of minoritized military service members and families. Kenny aims to contribute to the broader body of resiliency research through generating knowledge, understanding, and quality evidence to inform interventions for bolstering resiliency among uniformed personnel who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). His dissertation research targets resilience building strategies and environmental barriers experienced across racialized and ethnic subgroups within the military context. His goal is to improve service members’ mental/behavioral health, quality of life, role functioning, and operational readiness. He serves as an active duty licensed clinical social worker within the U.S. Army, where he worked in diverse health care settings and advised military organizational leaders on mental/behavioral health, operational readiness, crisis management, risk mitigation, and morale. Kenny was commissioned as an Army Officer and received his bachelor’s degree from George Mason University in 2011 and earned his MSW from Fayetteville State University in 2017.
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