VISION for UMB Center for Violence Prevention
Join us at 3 p.m. Oct. 14 for a town hall to meet a candidate being considered as executive director for the UMB Center for Violence Prevention. This event is open only to UMB faculty, staff, and students.
Who: Tanya L. Sharpe, PhD, MSW
Associate Professor and the Factor-Inwentash Chair in Social Work in the Global Community
University of Toronto
Date: Oct. 14, 2022
Time: 3-3:45 p.m.
Location: This town hall is virtual only. Register to attend virtually (password: CVP2022)
About the Candidate
Tanya Sharpe, PhD, MSW, is a community-based researcher who is passionately committed to the development of innovative approaches and sustainable opportunities allowing Black communities to thrive in the face of homicide violence. In 2018, she joined the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto, where she holds the Factor-Inwentash Chair in Social Work in the Global Community, after serving as an associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Social Work for 11 years.
She is the founder and director of the Centre for Research and Innovation for Black Survivors of Homicide Victims (The CRIB). The CRIB is an interdisciplinary community-based social work research center dedicated to reducing service inequities for communities of Black survivors of homicide victims by advancing collaborative culturally responsive research, restorative policy, and evidence-based practice.
Dr. Sharpe’s research examines sociocultural factors that influence the coping strategies of Black family members and friends of homicide victims. She has developed culturally appropriate interventions and best practices designed to assist African American survivors of homicide victims in the management of their grief and bereavement. Her comprehensive Model of Coping for African-American Survivors of Homicide Victims (MCAASHV) (Sharpe, 2015) has informed the development of a psychosocial educational intervention (Sharpe, Iwamoto, Massey, and Michalopoulos, 2018), and a tool of measurement designed to assess the needs and coping strategies of African American survivors of homicide victims.
She is the recipient of the 2018 Distinguished Alumni Award from her alma mater, Boston College Graduate School of Social Work. While at UMB, she received the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Diversity Recognition Award for Outstanding Faculty and the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Special Recognition Award for co-developing a course titled Freddie Gray-Baltimore: Past, Present and Moving Forward. She was the recipient of the 2014 Governor of Maryland’s Victim Assistance Award.
Dr. Sharpe earned her PhD in social work from Boston College, her Master of Social Work from the University of Connecticut, and a BA in sociology from Hampton University.
About the Center for Violence Prevention
Amid a national conversation about gun violence, the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) and the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center (Shock Trauma) at the University of Maryland Medical Center are collaborating to create the UMB Center for Violence Prevention, which will draw upon the resources and expertise from both anchor institutions to help reduce and respond to violence in Baltimore City and beyond.
The initiative seeks to address violence prevention and intervention efforts through a combined effort of Shock Trauma and the University of Maryland schools of medicine and social work, and the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law.
Funded by a $2 million gift from Betsy Sherman and the Sherman Family Foundation, the center will bridge numerous research and clinical programs already in place at UMB that address gun violence. With an interdisciplinary approach, the center will collaborate and partner across communities, academic institutions, nonprofit organizations, governmental bodies, corporations, and philanthropic organizations to advocate for informed policies and interventions toward violence prevention and creating social justice for all. This is achieved through collaborations and community-based partnerships to conduct research, develop creative and impactful education, and advocate for policies that strengthen our communities to prevent violence and trauma.