Rate My Professor Meredith Bagwell-Gray

Meredith Bagwell-Gray, PhD, LMSW, is an Associate Professor in the University of Kansas School of Social Welfare. She earned her PhD in Social Work from Arizona State University in 2016, with a dissertation on women's sexual health in the context of violent relationships; her MS in Social Work, with a concentration in Community, Administration, and Leadership, from the University of Texas at Austin in 2009; and her BA in Psychology from Arizona State University in 2006. Prior to joining the University of Kansas in 2018 as an Assistant Professor, she served as a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Office of Gender Based Violence at Arizona State University from 2017 to 2018. Her early career included roles as Client Advocate and Child and Family Therapist at Chrysalis Shelter for Victims of Domestic Violence in Phoenix, Arizona, where she answered hotlines, accompanied survivors to civil court and hospitals for sexual assault exams, provided shelter advocacy, and offered therapy. She also worked as Project Manager for a statewide needs assessment on mental health and substance abuse services for people living with HIV/AIDS at the University of Texas at Austin.

Bagwell-Gray's research and scholarship promote post-traumatic growth and healing for survivors of intimate partner violence and sexual violence, with a focus on designing, evaluating, and implementing trauma-informed interventions for survivors' sexual and reproductive health. She explores the role of creative and expressive arts in supporting survivors' sexual health empowerment and critically evaluates trauma-informed, survivor-centered systems across legal, health, and social services. In fall 2025, she received the Keeler Family Intra-University Professorship in the Management and Entrepreneurship area of the KU School of Business, applying her trauma expertise to workplace topics such as trust, compassion, organizational behavior, burnout, turnover, and employee well-being; she is a co-investigator on the Building Trauma-Informed Workplaces project. Key publications include 'Women's Healing Journey From Intimate Partner Violence: Establishing Positive Sexuality' (Qualitative Health Research, 2019), 'How Intimate Partner Violence and Intersectional Identities Converge to Influence Women's Sexual Health across Environmental Contexts' (Social Work, 2020), and 'From myPlan to ourCircle: Adapting a web-based safety planning intervention for Native American women exposed to intimate partner violence' (Journal of Ethnic & Cultural Diversity in Social Work, 2021). She serves on the board of directors for the Sexual Trauma and Abuse Care Center in Lawrence, Kansas, and previously received awards such as the Graduate Education Dissertation Fellowship and University Graduate Fellowship from Arizona State University in 2016.