Dr. Henrika McCoy is the Ruby Lee Piester Centennial Fellow in Services to Children and Families and Associate Professor at the Steve Hicks School of Social Work. She received her Ph.D. from the George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University in St. Louis, her Master of Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania, and her Master of Jurisprudence from Loyola University Chicago School of Law. She also earned her Bachelor of Arts in African and African American Studies and Sociology from Washington University in St. Louis.
Dr. McCoy conducts her research in partnership with community members/experts and predominately focuses her efforts in two areas. First, she examines how mental health issues precipitate the involvement of Black boys into the juvenile legal system while also exploring how those mental health issues are identified and their related experiences and outcomes. Second, she focuses on better identifying and understanding the violent victimization experiences of young Black males ages 18 to 24. Beyond those areas, her overarching scholarship extends to exploring the impact of structural and systemic racism on Black persons in America.
She has served as a PI for studies funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Administration on Children Youth and Families, and the National Institute of Justice (NIJ). She currently serves as a Co-Investigator for the NIJ and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funded Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Social Development Study (ABCD-SD) which measures delinquency and victimization at five sites of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)-funded Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study.
Dr. McCoy is on the editorial boards of Children and Youth Services Review and the Journal of Offender Rehabilitation. She has previously served as a Director-at-Large for the Society for Social Work and Research and as Co-Chair of the Division on People of Color and Crime for the American Society of Criminology. In 2022, she became a Society of Social Work and Research Fellow. She is the 2022 recipient of the American Society of Criminology, Division on People of Color and Crime, Julius Debro Award and a 2023 recipient of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences Critical Criminal Justice Scholar Award. Finally, Dr. McCoy is a Program Co-Chair for the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences 2024 Annual Conference and will begin a three-year term as an Executive Counselor for the American Society of Criminology in November of 2023.
Professional Interests
Adolescent and emerging adult Black males, mental health issues, racism, juvenile legal system