Victim Researcher Profile

BIO

Jane E. Palmer has a Ph.D. in Justice, Law & Society from American University, an M.S.W. from the Jane Addams College of Social Work at the University of Illinois-Chicago and a B.A. in Sociology from Smith College. Before coming to AU for her Ph.D., she was the executive director of a domestic violence agency in St. Louis. She worked for more than a decade in community-based organizations in urban, low-income communities as an advocate, youth program manager and social worker for children and families. Jane Palmer's interdisciplinary research focuses on gender-based violence prevention, help-seeking by survivors, legal/policy responses to gender-based violence and measurement/methodological issues in victimization research. Her dissertation was on bystander intervention in sexual assault and intimate partner violence situations on a college campus. She has conducted campus climate surveys on sexual assault, dating violence and bystander intervention since 2011. She is also working on a research project on the civil legal needs of survivors of sexual assault in collaboration with the Victim Rights Law Center. Prior to joining the American University faculty full-time, she was a post-doctoral associate at the Center on Violence Against Women and Children (VAWC) at the Rutgers University School of Social Work. From 2010 – 2013, Dr. Palmer was a graduate research fellow at the U.S. Department of Justice's National Institute of Justice where she was on a small team of individuals responsible for designing and implementing a Congressionally-mandated program of research on violence against American Indian and Alaska Native women living in tribal communities in the U.S. From 2014 - 2017, she served as a Technical Advisor on the National Baseline Study with American Indian Development Associates. Her peer-reviewed articles have been published in Violence Against Women, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, Review of Higher Education, NASPA Journal About Women in Higher Education, Journal of Student Affairs Research & Practice, and others. Her most recent publication was an analysis of sexual assault disclosure by college women at Historically Black Colleges & Universities and predominately white institutions. She has served on the Board of Directors for the Missouri Coalition Against Domestic & Sexual Violence and the DC Rape Crisis Center. She has also been involved with a strategic planning group for the District of Columbia's Office of Victim Services & Justice Grants. She currently serves on the Advisory Board for the Asian / Pacific Islander Domestic Violence Resource Project in Washington DC. She is also a consultant for Men Can Stop Rape, where she assists with evaluating their campus policy and prevention initiative, funded by the Office of Women's Health in the US Department of Health & Human Services, and in collaboration with 8 campuses in the DC, MD, & VA region.

VICTIMIZATION FOCUS

SPECIAL POPULATIONS

RESEARCH EXPERTISE

Community-based participatory research, Data collection, Needs assessment, Program evaluation, Qualitative studies, Training and/or technical assistance

VICTIM RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

Community-based participatory research, Data collection, Descriptive studies, Qualitative studies, Training and/or technical assistance