Assistant Professor (WOT) | School Mental Health Assessment, Research, and Training (SMART) Center | Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Position Overview
Organization: Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Title: Assistant Professor (WOT) | School Mental Health Assessment, Research, and Training (SMART) Center | Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Position Details
Position 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 component of the UW School of Medicine and shares UW Medicine’s mission to ‘Improve the Health of the Public.’ We accomplish this by providing the best care we can today, conducting research to develop better treatments for tomorrow, and inspiring and training the next generation of health care professionals for the Pacific Northwest. Our core values include openness, transparency, integrity, engagement, collaboration, and mutual respect. Our department is the third largest within the School of Medicine.
As the only academic psychiatry department serving Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho, we are committed to improving access to psychiatric care and consultation throughout the greater Pacific Northwest. Our educational programs include a required medical student clerkship for 260 medical students per year at some 30 sites across the WWAMI region, a nationally competitive psychiatry residency program with more than 90 psychiatry residents in Seattle and in two regional residency tracks in Idaho and Montana, subspecialty fellowships in addiction, child and adolescent, consultation-liaison, perinatal mental health and geriatric psychiatry, a nationally renowned scientist-practitioner psychology internship program, and numerous post-doctoral clinical and research fellowships.
Learn more: https://psychiatry.uw.edu/
Salary:
The base salary range for this position will be commensurate with experience and qualifications, or as mandated by a U.S. Department of Labor prevailing wage determination.
The base salary range for someone with a PhD/PsyD for an Assistant Professor WOT will be $110,004 - $125,004 annually ($9,167 - $10,417 per month).
Qualifications
- A PhD, PsyD, EdD or foreign equivalent in Psychology, Criminology, Public Health, Population Health (or a related field). At least three years of postdoctoral or equivalent advanced research training in areas related to violence prevention, psychiatry/behavioral health, or school mental health. Evidence of an emerging, externally-funded independent research program in youth violence, firearm injury prevention, school safety, or school mental health, demonstrated by a strong record of first-authored peer-reviewed publications.
Positive factors for consideration include, but are not limited to:
- An active or recently funded NIH career development award (e.g., K99/R00) or comparable early-career award focused on school policing.
- Track record as Principal Investigator on externally funded projects (e.g., NIH, CDC, DOJ/OJJDP, state/local agencies, foundations) aligned with school safety, school policing, or school-based violence prevention.
- Demonstrated expertise in advanced quantitative methods (e.g., quasi-experimental designs, causal inference, multilevel models, policy evaluation) and policy analysis/legal epidemiology.
- Experience leading or contributing to multi-site or multi-state research collaborations involving schools, districts, and community organizations.
- Experience teaching or delivering research methods and content-area training to students, fellows, or practitioners.
Instructions
- CV – School of Medicine Format
- One-page synopsis of your research plans and scientific vision.
- Diversity Statement: A statement detailing how your teaching, research, and/or clinical service has supported working with patients from a wide range of backgrounds. Applicants who have not yet had the opportunity for such experience should note how their work will further the Department’s commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion.
Consideration of all candidates will continue until the position is filled. Please reach out to pbscihr@uw.edu with questions.
Equal Employment Opportunity Statement
The University of Washington is committed to fostering an inclusive, respectful and welcoming community for all.
As an equal opportunity employer, the University considers applicants for employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, national origin, citizenship, sex, pregnancy, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, disability, or veteran status consistent with UW Executive Order No. 81.
Benefits Information
A summary of benefits associated with this title/rank can be found at https://hr.uw.edu/benefits/benefits-orientation/benefit-summary-pdfs/. Appointees solely employed and paid directly by a non-UW entity are not UW employees and are not eligible for UW or Washington State employee benefits
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Disability Services
To request disability accommodation in the application process, contact the Disability Services Office at 206-543-6450 or dso@uw.edu.