The School of Social Policy & Practice’s Excellence in Teaching Award is presented to standing and non-standing faculty members in recognition of excellence in teaching and mentoring during the previous year. Winners are chosen by the Student Policies and Procedures Committee from the faculty with the highest quantitative scores for “overall quality of the instructor” on the course evaluations.

Standing Faculty Award

The Standing Faculty recipient is Allison Werner-Lin, associate professor and adjunct investigator at the National Cancer Institute, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, director of the Social Work in Health Care Specialization, and chair of the Advanced Clinical Social Work Practice. Her research addresses the intersection of genomic discovery and family life. Dr. Werner-Lin seeks to broaden social work’s guiding “person-in-environment” framework to include genetic variation as a core feature of assessment, one in constant interaction with developmental, sociocultural and environmental contexts. Her work addresses the ethical, legal and social implications (ELSI) of emerging genomic technologies in reproductive, pediatric, adolescent and young adult populations. This work is funded through the National Human Genome Research Institute’s Clinical Sequencing Exploratory Research program and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Non-Standing Faculty Award

The Non-Standing Faculty recipient is Melanie Masin-Moyer, full-time lecturer at the MSW Program and assistant director of the DSW Program. Dr. Masin-Moyer has been in clinical practice over 20 years in a non-profit community behavioral health agency. She has worked with children, adolescents, couples, families and individuals with a variety of mental health concerns. She has facilitated group therapy in school and agency settings addressing life skills, anger management, social skills, trauma and relationships. She completed her clinical doctorate in social work in 2017 at Penn. Her research interests include attachment, mental health, women’s trauma and group therapy.