Research Expertise

• School social work and school mental/behavioral health services
• Social and environmental barriers to K-12 academic achievement 
• Program evaluation 

Background

Dr. Kristina (Krysti) Webber joined the faculty of the College of Social Work in 2013 and is a clinical associate professor teaching in the College’s undergraduate, masters, and doctoral programs.  

Webber’s primary scholarly interests include social and environmental barriers to children and youth’s academic achievement and well-being; social work education; and mixed-methods program evaluation. Webber has presented and published on topics related to school social work, school mental/behavioral health services, school engagement, racial inequities in K-12 education, and measurement methods. Her publications have appeared in the Journal of Adolescence, Journal of Educational Psychology, and Children and Schools, among others. 

Since 2015, Webber has served as a board member for SCEPUR, the state-level affiliate of the American Education Research Association (AERA) and is currently an editorial board member for the International Journal of School Social Work.  

Webber’s social work practice experience includes work with youth-serving community organizations and public schools. She has also served as a grant and program evaluator for several federally funded prevention/intervention projects in K-12 schools. She has experience providing technical assistance to community-based programs and public schools to develop youth programming and school-family-community partnerships. 

Webber received her Master of Social Work from the University of Maryland-Baltimore School of Social Work. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Social Work.