Associate Professor and Director, Center for Clinical Social Work

Dr. Smith-Osborne’s primary research interests lie in the neurobehavioral underpinnings of resilience for vulnerable populations in contexts of adversity throughout the life course, resilience theory, and translational and implementation science. She is currently an associate professor at the University of Texas at Arlington where her faculty-student research team in the Center for Clinical Social Work (CCSW) focuses on neurobehavioral factors (e.g., genetic contributors to differential susceptibility to adversity) affecting response to social work interventions, interactions of neurobehavioral factors with social network and other contextual variables on resilient outcomes, and effects of assistive and communications technology on supporting cognitive executive functions and intervention response. These are being tested with health disparities groups of children, adolescent, and adults as well as military and veteran samples. These efforts have resulted in key findings, including efficacy of an adjunct therapy in improving neurobehavioral function of veterans with disabilities, and efficacy of psychosocial rehabilitation (i.e., supported education) in decreasing substance use and PTSD symptoms, increasing community reintegration, and sustaining resilience. She has initiated collaboration with the Bioengineering Department to refine and test functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy to deliver non-invasive physiological measures of brain function with cognitive testing to support psychosocial rehabilitation for adults with a range of conditions affecting higher cognitive functions.

• 2006 - Ph.D. in Social Work, University of Maryland at Baltimore
• 1975 - M.S.W. in Social Work, University of Maryland at Baltimore
• 1973 - B.A. in English, University of Virginia