Georgetown College. Georgetown University.

By LiAnna Davis

A summer Americorps program that placed her in southeast D.C. to serve as a literacy and math teacher at John Tyler Elementary School taught Joanna Bisgaier the importance of community. She has embraced it through work with Dr. Deborah Phillips at Georgetown and a master’s program in social work at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy and Practice.

“This introduction to the glaring inequities facing children living in American urban poverty was one of the most intense and challenging experiences of my life,” Bisgaier says of her Americorps experience. “With few exceptions, my students were drastically behind academically, unable to regulate their behavior, and lived in high-stress social situations that included sudden deaths, untreated health problems, crime, abuse, neglect, and a severe lack of resources and support. The layers of my students’ issues were so staggering and complicated that I found myself at a loss as to how to understand and address their needs.”

Bisgaier explored these issues in her Georgetown courses in Theology, English, Psychology, Ethics, Sociology, and Justice and Peace Studies, but gained a different perspective in two of Dr. Phillips’.

“I was fascinated by the challenge of understanding a child in a developmental context and then examining how risk and protective factors found in families, cultures, communities, and public policies contribute to typical or atypical development,” she says. “Dr. Phillips’ teaching went a step further to incorporate how scientific knowledge regarding child development also should be used to advocate on behalf of children in the policy arena. The conceptual framework she used in her classes continues to influence how I think about ideas and analyze problems today.”

Bisgaier also assisted Dr. Phillips in her research on childcare, both as an undergraduate and as the lab coordinator after she graduated from Georgetown in 2004. These experiences taught her what an exceptional mentor she had in Dr. Phillips.

“In my mind, Dr. Phillips sets the gold standard of a truly exceptional professor. She has a seemingly bottomless capacity for teaching students in and out of the classroom and the passion to inspire and encourage students in their academic and intellectual endeavors,” Bisgaier says. “Outside of the classroom, her commitment to involving undergraduates in her research projects truly encourages the growth of young social scientists. We worked as a team where everyone’s ideas were respected and explored. I continue to use the tools that I acquired in Dr. Phillips’ lab, and I know I will rely on this foundation in my future research career.”

Bisgaier chose to seek a graduate degree in social work because it could encompass both the research and policy work that Dr. Phillips inspired her to pursue while offering the opportunities to work with children and families in crisis and directly advocate for children with special needs. She spends three days a week apprenticing under a medical social worker at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Regional Autism Center, helping families access needed early intervention services when their children have received an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis. She is also serving as a research assistant for Dr. Karin Rhodes on a project to examine and document whether pediatric Medicaid patients have equal access to specialty health care services as their commercially insured counterparts. She hopes to continue her education in Penn’s doctorate program in Social Welfare.

“I dream that my career ultimately will include direct practice social work in addition to research that addresses the health needs of vulnerable populations like children in poverty, helps ensure the fair and adequate implementation of public policies that address special physical and behavioral health care needs, and provides our society with a rationale to make appropriate social welfare investments,” Bisgaier says. “My goal is to support health care advocates who are committed to the reform of health care systems. Academically, I hope to teach future social workers and social welfare researchers. I hope to be the kind of professor that communicates knowledge and ideas in a way that inspires students to make contributions that impact and improve our society, the way that Dr. Phillips has inspired me.”

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