Congratulations to Fordham GSS faculty members Jordan DeVylder, Ph.D., and G. Lawrence Farmer, Ph.D., who have been named full Professors at the Graduate School of Social Service!
About Professor DeVylder
Professor DeVylder has been on the GSS faculty since 2017. He received his M.S.W. and Ph.D. in Social Work from Columbia University, his MS in Cognition & Brain Science from Georgia Institute of Technology, and his BA in Psychology from New York University. He was previously employed at the University of Maryland School of Social Work as Assistant Professor, and as a clinician/researcher at New York State Psychiatric Institute. He was a 2021-2022 Fulbright Fellow to study emerging psychotic symptoms in Japan and maintains a Visiting Professor affiliation at the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science. Dr. DeVylder has authored approximately 170 peer-reviewed articles (50 as first author), more than a dozen commentaries and book chapters, and is currently principal investigator on an R34 grant from the National Institute of Mental Health.
Dr. DeVylder’s research is focused on preventive mental health, with a particular emphasis on psychosis and suicide. His research on the clinical significance of early psychotic symptoms has been published in leading social work and psychiatry journals, including JAMA Psychiatry, World Psychiatry, and Schizophrenia Bulletin. He is currently conducting an intervention development study to adapt Youth-Nominated Support Teams as a suicide prevention approach for adolescents and young adults with emerging psychotic symptoms, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health. He has several ongoing projects focused on the epidemiology of psychosis, examining the role of stress, urban upbringing, and crime victimization in psychosis etiology in the United States and internationally, particularly in Japan. He has also focused on studying the impact of police violence from a public mental health perspective, finding that exposure to police violence is associated with notably elevated levels of psychological distress, delusional thoughts, and suicidal behavior.
About Professor Farmer
G. Lawrence Farmer, MSW, Ph.D., has been on the GSS faculty since 2004. He also serves as Director of the Doctoral Program at GSS. He earned his Ph.D. in Social Welfare at Florida International University, his M.S.W., and BA in Psychology and Biomedical Ethics at the University of Pittsburgh. His scholarly interests center on understanding those factors that promote the well-being of youth. For example, the role the social worker can plan to strengthen the social environment’s ability to promote the development of non-cognitive competencies in youth that will promote positive youth development. Additionally, Dr. Farmer has interests in psychometrics, implementation science, and advanced quantitative statistical methods. He is currently in partnership with the Urban Assembly (https://urbanassembly.org/) to research the development, implementation, and evaluation of social-emotional learning interventions in public schools.
