Assistant Professor (WOT) | School Mental Health Assessment, Research, and Training (SMART) Center | Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Description

The Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in the School of Medicine at the University of Washington is seeking to hire a full-time academic position, which will be based within the SMART Center. The position will be at the rank of Assistant Professor without tenure due to funding (WOT) in the Faculty Scientist track.  

Assistant Professors are eligible for multi-year appointments that align with a 12-month service period (July 1-June 30). Faculty with 12-month service periods are paid for 11 months of service over a 12-month period (July-June), meaning the equivalent of one month is available for paid time off. 

All University of Washington faculty engage in teaching, research and service. 

Job Duties include but are not limited to:

• Develop and sustain a nationally visible, externally funded research program in school mental health and violence prevention.
• Lead mixed-methods, quasi-experimental, and implementation science studies that integrate administrative data, survey data, and qualitative methods to understand and improve school safety and mental health systems.
• Serve as Principal Investigator or key Co-Investigator on federal (e.g., NIH, CDC), state, foundation, and local grants. 
• Maintain a consistent record of peer-reviewed publications in high-impact journals across public health, psychiatry, school health, criminology, and injury prevention.
• Provide content leadership within the SMART Center on school safety, youth firearm violence prevention, school policing, and school-based crisis response.
• Build and sustain community partnerships with school districts, state agencies, school-based health centers, law enforcement, community-based organizations, and youth-led groups to co-design and evaluate school and youth violence prevention strategies.
• Collaborate with other UW units to enhance research infrastructure for school-based injury and violence projects.
• Contribute to the SMART Center and Department teaching and mentoring missions (e.g., graduate or professional seminars in school mental health, youth violence, implementation science; quantitative methods-focused workshops).
• Provide mentorship to trainees (students, fellows, junior faculty) on developing research careers in school mental health, school and youth violence prevention, and firearm violence prevention.
• Participate in Department, Center, and University service activities that align with expertise.

The overarching mission of the School Mental Health Assessment, Research, and Training (SMART) Center is to promote high-quality, culturally-responsive programs, practices, and policies to meet the full range of social, emotional, and behavioral (SEB) needs of students in both general and special education contexts. The SMART Center aims to accomplish this mission by using innovative and practical research methods to:

• Develop contextually appropriate, low-burden programs that prevent or ameliorate SEB problems; 
• Develop strategies for communities, districts, and schools to increase the use of effective SEB programs, practices, and policies; 
• Support indigenous providers such as teachers and school-based mental health providers in their roles; and 
• Enhance the interconnections across school, home, and community contexts. 

The Center represents a transdisciplinary collaboration between faculty in the College of Education (CoE), the School of Social Work (SSW), and the School of Medicine (SoM; Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences) at the University of Washington. Through this collaboration, SMART facilitates more equitable, effective, and integrated approaches to research and technical assistance surrounding the design and implementation of evidence-based SEB interventions.

Research and evaluation are fundamental to the SMART Center’s mission of advancing the science on school mental health and developing innovative methods to improve the adoption and sustainment of evidence-based practices (EBP) in the education sector. SMART Center faculty maintain a collaborative, externally-funded program of research with local and national colleagues that has direct relevance to the Assessment and Training arms.  To support the Center’s research goals, we maintain a “local laboratory” in Seattle, King County, and the Puget Sound Region (supporting schools, providers, and learning through the process) to evaluate innovative methods of service delivery and quality improvement. 

Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences 

The Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences is an integral