Welcome New Faculty and Staff
Dnika J. Travis
Dnika J. Travis has joined the School of Social Work as an assistant professor. She holds a doctorate in social work from the University of Southern California and recently completed a post-doctoral fellowship at SSW with the Addiction Research Institute (ARI), Center for Social Work Research (where she continues to be involved with a process and practice improvement study). Travis' research interests include employee voice and engagement; leadership and organizational effectiveness; and diversity and inclusion in the workplace. She teaches in the Community and Administrative Leadership concentration. Travis is also a faculty fellow with the university's Center for Women's & Gender Studies Faculty Development Program.
Travis has served as a researcher and project manager on research projects relating to organizational change and effectiveness, worker retention (with an emphasis on leadership and supervision) in child welfare, diversity and inclusion in a global context, and behavioral health community initiatives. She has also served as a research consultant on workplace diversity and inclusion initiatives with Fortune 500 companies.
Elaine H. Cavazos
Elaine H. Cavazos, LCSW, joins the faculty as a clinical assistant professor after serving as a lecturer at the School of Social Work since 2004. She received a master's degree in social work from Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio. Her professional and academic interests are medical social work and gerontology. She is currently working with SSW students who are placed in field agencies working with the older adult population.
Previously, Cavazos was a medical social worker at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston, where she provided social services to patients and families for the departments of Pediatric Cardiology and Allergy and Immunology. In this role, she conducted psychosocial evaluations on both patients and families as part of assessing candidacy for cardiac transplantation. Before that, she worked at The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston providing services to patients receiving treatment for cancer in both out-patient and in-patient settings, and co-facilitated support groups for prostate cancer patients and end-stage cancer patients.
Carolyn Hanesworth
Carolyn Hanesworth, LCSW, is a clinical assistant professor and teaches graduate courses in Direct Practice I and II, and serves as a field liaison for agency field settings. She received a master's degree in social work from the University of Texas at Arlington. Her professional interests include family homelessness, early childhood poverty and mental health, program development and collaborations between education, law and social work to address chronic poverty.
Previously, Hanesworth developed a 12-year professional social work career dedicated to serving homeless families with young children. From 1995 to 2006, she served in various direct and macro level capacities at the Vogel Alcove Childcare Center for the Homeless in Dallas. While there, she was instrumental in the design and implementation of an innovative program model, which provides supportive, long-term interventions to preschool-aged children experiencing chronic poverty. Hanesworth most recently served as the director of the Children and Families Initiative, a project of the Partnership for the Homeless, in New York City.