Katie Edwards

Dr. Katie Edwards is a Professor of Social Work at the University of Michigan where she directs the Interpersonal Violence Research Laboratories. Using community-led research approaches, she focuses on preventing and responding to sexual and related forms of violence among vulnerable populations—including Indigenous/Native Americans, LGBTQIA2S+ youth, and families living in poverty. For example, much of Dr. Edwards current work is focused on program development and evaluation with Indigenous youth and communities as well as LGBTQIA2S+ youth and their families. Dr. Edwards employs over 50 staff, students, postdocs, and research scientists who work across the nation including field offices on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Rapid City South Dakota, and Des Moines Iowa. Dr. Edwards highly values community leadership and engaging students, postdocs and early career scholars as co-leaders in research that seeks to make communities safe, equitable and inclusive for all. To date, she has obtained more than 25 million dollars in research funding and published more than 220 peer-reviewed publications. She has also been named by Stanford University as among the top 2% of researchers in the world, and Dr. Edwards received several distinguished awards/honors for her work. While she is grateful for these recognitions, she is most grateful to bear witness to the impact of her collaborative work and for the relationships that the work creates and sustains.