Joseph Ryan, PhD
Joseph Ryan, PhD
CoDirector
Joseph Ryan is an Associate Professor at the UM‐School of Social Work. Ryan received an MSW from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Ryan worked in a variety of residential and community based programs serving adolescents involved with the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. He is particularly focused on helping State agencies use data and information to drive policy and practice. Ryan has extensive experience conducting applied research in social service settings, with numerous studies focusing on child maltreatment, parental substance abuse, childhood trauma and juvenile delinquency. Ryan was appointed by the Governor to serve on the Michigan Committee on Juvenile Justice and also serves on the editorial boards of numerous journals including Child Maltreatment, Child Welfare, Social Work Research, and Residential Treatment for Children and Youth.
After more than twenty years of working with child welfare and juvenile justice agencies – both as a direct practitioner and as a researcher – this much is known. Organizations are more efficient and interventions are more effective when decisions are based on empirical evidence. The Child and Adolescent Data Lab emerged in response to the recognition that social service systems struggle to address highly complex problems with limited data.