Sarah McMahon, Primary Investigator, is an Associate Professor at the Rutgers University School of Social Work and also serves as the Associate Director for the School’s Center for Research on Ending Violence. Her research focuses on violence against women and children, with an emphasis on prevention and social change.  Dr. McMahon has extensive experience in designing and implementing studies with college students to measure their knowledge, attitudes and behaviors related to sexual violence, with a focus on bystander intervention. In 2014, she was invited to collaborate with the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault through the testing of a campus climate survey tool.  She was also appointed by the Governor of NJ to serve on the state’s Task Force to Address Campus Sexual Violence and also serves on the National Sexual Violence Resource Center Advisory Board.  She has numerous publications on the topic of sexual violence and has presented her work around the country. Dr. McMahon also serves as the Chair of the NJ Domestic Violence Fatality and Near Fatality Review Board.  Prior to her position at the School of Social Work, Dr. McMahon worked in a clinical setting, providing crisis intervention and counseling to survivors of various forms of interpersonal violence and delivering prevention education to the wider community.

Judy L. Postmus, Co-Primary Investigator, is Dean of the School of Social Work, University of Maryland and is founder and director of the Center for Research on Ending Violence (formerly the Center on Violence Against Women and Children). Her research is on physical, sexual, and economic victimization experiences of women with her most recent attention given to understanding how an economic empowerment curriculum improves fiscal and mental health functioning of domestic violence survivors.  Dr. Postmus has given many local, national, and international presentations on the impact of policies and interventions on survivors of violence. Her work is strongly influenced from her 20 years as a practitioner and administrator.