Victim Researcher Profile

BIO

Dr. Sarah Ullman is a Social/Developmental Psychologist and Professor of Criminology, Law, and Justice at University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Ullman has published numerous peer-reviewed articles and chapters. She published a scholarly monograph Talking About Sexual Assault: Society’s Response to Survivors, 2010, American Psychological Association, currently under revision. Dr. Ullman’s research interests are on violence against women, particularly sexual victimization of women in adulthood. Her work uses quantitative and qualitative methods to study risk factors for sexual victimization and the impact of rape on women’s mental and physical health including PTSD, suicidal behavior, problem drinking, and mental health services seeking. Dr. Ullman’s early work examined women’s resistance strategies in rape situations and the relationship of self-defense training to women’s avoidance of rapes. She has examined the role of alcohol in sexual assault as a risk factor for being assaulted and an outcome of victimization. She also developed a measure of social reactions to victim’s disclosures of sexual trauma that is widely used to examine the impact of social reactions on women’s recovery from sexual victimization. Professor Ullman has conducted longitudinal studies funded by the NIAAA on sexual assault survivors’ recovery and help seeking, involving both surveys and interviews. Her research examines how social reactions from formal and informal support sources affect women’s coping and recovery from sexual assault including their PTSD and substance abuse outcomes. Her studies examine risk and protective factors for revictimization, health, and substance abuse outcomes. She has interviewed survivors and service providers (advocates, clinicians) about help-seeking, and is evaluating a novel informal support network intervention for survivors and their social network members.

VICTIMIZATION FOCUS

Sexual Abuse or Violence (other than campus sexual assault)

SPECIAL POPULATIONS

sexual assault victims

RESEARCH EXPERTISE

Data collection, Descriptive studies, Qualitative studies, Quantitative studies

VICTIM RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

Data collection, Descriptive studies, Qualitative studies, Quantitative studies