Rate My Professor Jeanelle Sears

Jeanelle Sears serves as Associate Professor and BSSW Program Coordinator in the Social Work program within the Department of Human Services at Bowling Green State University. She earned her Ph.D. in Social Work from the University of Louisville, MSW in Social Work from the University of Vermont, MSc in Cross Cultural Studies of Childhood, Youth, and Child Development, Graduate Diploma in Forced Migration and Refugee Studies, and B.A. in Psychology and Anthropology from the University of Louisville. Prior to her academic career, Sears accumulated diverse practice experiences, including serving as an AmeriCorps VISTA for an immigrant and refugee community center in Louisville, Kentucky, practicing rural child welfare in Vermont, and administering health and safety programs for the Berea College Promise Neighborhood Initiative. These roles inform her commitment to community-based interventions and social service delivery.

Sears' research and teaching center on the intersection of place, culture, identity, and belonging within organizations, communities, and professions. Her specializations encompass qualitative methods and program evaluation. She teaches courses in human behavior in the social environment, macro practice focusing on organizations and communities, and qualitative research methods. Key publications include "Becoming one with the community: a grounded theory-derived context-specific framework exploring AIDS service organization strategies for implementing pre-exposure prophylaxis outreach among African American populations" (2026, BMC Health Services Research, with Ayangeakaa et al.), "Making the most of it: visiting parent perspectives on supervised parenting services" (2026, Journal of Family Social Work, with Wilfong and Olah), "Making it work: Custodial caregiver experiences with third-party supervised visitation" (2025, Family Court Review, with Wilfong and Olah), "Public Health in the Public Eye: Experiences of Ohio’s Public Health Workforce During COVID-19" (2024, Health Promotion Practice, with Maziarz et al.), "Sociocultural and structural influences on HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) Engagement and Uptake among African American Young adults" (2023, BMC Public Health, with Ayangeakaa et al.), "Motivational Interviewing in Child Welfare Services: A Systematic Review" (2020, with Hall and Walton), and "Racial Differences in the Dementia Caregiving Experience" (2022, with Moon et al.). Sears contributes to the field as a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare. She maintains an active profile with 16 research outputs documented through her ORCID (0000-0002-4659-3089).