Jessica Willard

Jessica Willard is a PhD student in the School of Social Work at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.  Before becoming a social worker, she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Savannah College of Art and Design and went on to work in digital marketing and youth development in industry and nonprofit settings. She later pursued a Master of Social Work degree from UNC Charlotte, where she became involved with research addressing violence intervention and prevention among diverse populations. Jessica is also a trained victim advocate and has clinical experience working with victim-survivors of sexual and intimate partner violence and human trafficking across the social ecology. Prior to joining Rutgers, she developed web-based interventions as part of two randomized controlled trials addressing child sex trafficking and maternal deaths and injuries due to violence.

Jessica’s varied experiences coalesce to shape her research interests in gender-based violence prevention and leveraging technology to address violence across the lifespan. Specifically, she is interested in the duality of technologies (e.g., gaming platforms) in facilitating harm and fostering communities of care, particularly among minoritized groups. She also seeks to engage boys and men in primary and secondary violence prevention. Jessica currently works as a research assistant with Dr. Sarah McMahon at the Center for Research on Ending Violence (REV).

• BFA, Savannah College of Art and Design, 2014
• MSW, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2022