Jennifer M. Gómez, Ph.D.

Board Director, Center for Institutional Courage
Assistant Professor, School of Social Work, Boston University
About Jennifer M. Gómez 

I oversee the Research Committee for the Center for Institutional Courage, which helps to shape our scientific research agenda about institutional betrayal and courage. My own academic work focuses on societal inequality’s role on the impact of violence. As the creator of cultural betrayal trauma theory, I amplify the voices, perspectives, and realities of marginalized youth and young adults that often go at best unheard and at worst degraded by our society at large. I named my research laboratory The HOPE Lab to highlight that our work is not unilaterally depressing, but instead provides a needed mirror of pain, strength, and healing to some of our country’s most silenced. My work has been nationally recognized, including by the National Academy of Sciences and The Ford Foundation Fellowship Programs, and I have published more than 50 peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, scholarly writings, and pieces for the general public. When I am not working to identify avenues of hope and healing for individuals, families, communities, institutions, and society, I reconnect with my past life as a professional ballet dancer with Dance Theatre of Harlem by going to the theatre and museums in beautiful Detroit.