Fellows

Richard M. Tolman, LMSW, PhD, is the Sheldon D. Rose Collegiate Professor of Social Work at the University of Michigan. He received his doctorate in social welfare from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his MSW from the University of Michigan. Professor Tolman’s work focuses on understanding and preventing gender-based violence. He began his work in this area as a practitioner working with men who batter in 1980. His research includes the development of the widely used Psychological Maltreatment of Women Inventory. He has created and evaluated programs for men who batter. In response to the devolution of welfare benefits in 1996, he studied the impact of domestic violence on the well-being of women receiving welfare benefits, and brought together researchers, advocates, and policy makers to collaborate on how to best address women’s safety. His current projects include research on the prevention of abuse during pregnancy through interventions aimed at prospective fathers and involvement of men and boys as allies to end men’s violence against women and girls and promote gender equality. Through numerous interdisciplinary collaborations, he has been involved in scholarly projects using methods as diverse as simulated infants, interactive theater and mobile game apps. Professor Tolman teaches primarily in the interpersonal practice sequence. He also co-teaches a course focusing on community empowerment through creative expression. He is engaged in several projects, overlapping dimensions of research, teaching and service, that focus on the use of creative arts in social work efforts.