Audrey Mengwasser Shillington, professor and director of the School of Social Work at Colorado State University, has earned the status of fellow in the American Academy of Health Behavior, reaching the highest rank of the academy’s most prestigious membership group. Shillington also serves as professor of epidemiology at the Colorado School of Public Health.

Shillington began her education at Drury University and later at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis, earning an M.S.W. with an emphasis in research. She then obtained her doctorate degree in adolescent risk behaviors and was a NIMH Fellow at the Washington University School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, where she received a master’s of psychiatric epidemiology with an emphasis in substance abuse and AIDS.

She helped build the Center for Alcohol and Drug Studies at San Diego State University and served as the associate director. She previously taught at Utah State University, St. Louis University and the Washington University School of Medicine.

Shillington also has experience serving in the Peace Corps in Benin, West Africa. As a volunteer, she taught rural women’s groups and governmental agricultural outreach workers a new energy-saving stoves technology.

Shillington has published research in the areas of psychometrics, epidemiology, prevention and intervention work aimed at adolescent and young adult risk behaviors. Her current work is focused on testing trauma informed care and resilience for children and caregivers in the child welfare system and issues around legalized recreational cannabis.

Shillington will be honored as a new fellow of the AAHB at the 17th Annual AAHB Scientific Meeting, in Tucson, Arizona, in early 2017. More information is available here.

The School of Social Work is part of the College of Health and Human Sciences at CSU.