Otrude Moyo, PhD, MSW

Assistant Professor

Otrude N. Moyo joined the School of Social Work at the University of Southern Maine in 2002. She is a graduate of Brandeis University, the Heller School of Social Policy and Management, with an emphasis in work, inequality and social change. Her MSW degree is from the University of Southern Illinois at Carbondale with a concentration in children, youth and families and her undergraduate work is from the School of Social Work, University of Zimbabwe. Her research and teaching interests include social welfare policy, qualitative research methods, international and social development issues, immigration and refugee issues, work and provisioning strategies of families, community organizing, advocacy and human service delivery systems to disadvantaged communities. Her experience includes field-based research in the area of families, work and changing economies, and household use and management of natural resources. She has participated in designing and administering participatory monitoring and evaluation systems to understand and report on program implementation process (Zimbabwe Trust- Natural Resources Management Project (# 690-0251 supported by USAID). She has worked collaboratively in team of policy researchers and practitioners analyzing federal policies that impact children's transition to school (Resource Guide to Selected Federal Policies Affecting Children's Social and Emotional Development and their Readiness for school, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, FPG Child Development Center). Otrude has published articles in New Global Development: Journal of International and Comparative Social Welfare, International Association of Feminist Economics, Social Development Issues and Journal of Health and Social Policy. In 2003, she was awarded a visiting research fellowship at the African Studies Center, Leiden University Netherlands, which enabled the preparation of her forthcoming book, Trampled No More: Voices from Bulawayo's Townships about Families, Life, Survival and Social Change in Zimbabwe (University Press of America). She is a member of the Editorial Collective -Journal of Progressive Human Services and a consulting editor for Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies. Otrude taught high school in Zimbabwe and in the same capacity participated in the rehabilitation and education of former refugee students who had been displaced by Zimbabwe's war of independence. She has continued to work with "new" immigrants and refugees in southern Maine. Prior to coming to USM, she served as an adjunct instructor at Southern Illinois University.