Personal Summary

I am planning on taking at least one graduate student for Fall 2024.

Please note that, as a policy and for equity purposes, I do not meet with students prior to the interview day. However, you are more than welcome to reach out with questions to clarify anything described here. 

Education

Posdoctoral Research Fellow, Violence Against Women Cluster, University of Central Florida, 2022 

Ph.D., Clinical Psychology, University of Denver, 2021

Predoctoral internship, UC Davis CAARE Center, 2021

M.A., Clinical Psychology, University of Denver, 2017

B.A., Psychology, UC Davis, 2015 

Research Interests

Broadly, my research focuses on investigating gender-based and family violence and subsequent system response and revictimization. Specifically, I investigate how systemic responses (e.g., child welfare, campus, legal) can perpetuate oppressive practices or injustice towards survivors of gender-based and family violence, and how that response can be addressed to reduce risk for revictimization. For example, a mother who purposely arrives late for child visitation to avoid her former abusive partner’s threats as he finishes his own visitation may be viewed negatively by the court, and may result in important consequences. How can we use research to understand the individual and social context underlying this mother’s decision? How can research be used to inform different practices?

Research approach: I value research that can inform policy and practice while also advancing our scientific understanding of gender-based and family violence. As such, I seek to build partnerships with community stakeholders who directly work with survivors, and together develop research questions. In this way, I hope that findings can help answer practical questions and inform sustainable and applicable recommendations.

In addition to community engaged, I also take an intersectional and feminist approach. This means that I believe that issues contributing to barriers in serving survivors to be multifaceted and intertwined, including, for example, those of systemic racism, sexism, and patriarchy. It also means that I use a mixed methods (i.e., quantitative, qualitative, administrative) approach to collecting data.

Projects

Examples of current projects: 

Intimate partner violence and child welfare: Families whose children are removed from their care following child abuse substantiation must often complete a case plan to reunify with their children. There is significant overlap between domestic violence and child welfare involvement, and my team and I are interested in investigating the role of DV as a barrier to reunification.   

Intimate partner homicide, strangulation, and TBI: Strangulation in intimate partner violence is often unrecognized but can have important implications for mental and physical health, service utilization, and risk of homicide. My team and I are interested in further understanding dynamics of violence associated with strangulation, and what service responses are most effective for risk prevention. 

Recognition and response to risk: There is a well-established association between child abuse and later risk for revictimization. Several different researchers have explored the underlying reasons as to why such a relationship might exist. This project seeks to add to those efforts by examining individual differences in survivor experience, as well as investigating differences in how survivors respond to risk in an interactive, online environment.

Screening for sexual assault on college campuses: Intimate partner violence (IPV) and sexual assault (SA) on campuses are highly prevalent and alarming issues that has received significant recognition in recent years. Federal and state guidelines have urged universities to implement early identification and prevention efforts for IPV/SA. However, campuses rarely screen for IPV/SA in college health settings. This project, in partnership with the University of Central Florida, seeks to develop and test an IPV/SA screening tool to implement in college health settings.

Domestic violence transitional housing and parenting: Domestic violence transitional housing (DVTH) is a longer form of temporary shelter that provides women and their children between 6 to 24 months of housing stability following domestic violence. During this time, women can receive services to aid them in securing more permanent housing, including mental health services, employment training, legal advocacy, etc. In collaboration with several partners in the US, I am hoping to learn more about parenting in the context of DVTH, and its impact on child outcomes following family violence.

Other project interests include the overrepresentation of marginalized populations in welfare systems, legal and custody abuse, police response in pretrial period, or the role of micro-aggressions as risk for revictimization.  

Selected Publications

Palmer, J.E, Morgan, J.W., Hinojosa, S., Olomi, J.M., Ayala, L., & Rosay, A. (2021). Anti-Racist & intersectional approaches in social science and community-based research. In R. Throne (Ed). Handbook of Research on Social Justice Research Methods (pp. 222-244). IGI Global.

Olomi, J.M., Wright, N. DePrince, A.P. (2020). Revictimization of sexually abused children. In I. Bryce & W. Petherick (Eds), Childhood Sexual Abuse: Forensic Issues in Evidence, Impact and management (pp. 267-291). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-819434-8.00013-1

Wright, N., Olomi, J.M., DePrince, A.P. (2020). Community-Engaged Research: A Trauma Specialist’s Tool for Action and Advocacy. Journal of Trauma and Dissociation, 21(4), 452-67. https://doi.org/10.1080/15299732.2020.1770150

Olomi, J.M., Wright, N., Hasche, L., & DePrince, A.P. (2019). After older adult maltreatment: Service needs and barriers. Journal of Gerontological Social Work, 62(7),749-76. https://doi.org/10.1080/01634372.2019.1668517

Olomi, J.M., DePrince, A.P., Gagnon, K.L. (2019). Institutional responses to campus sexual assault: Examining the development and work of a multidisciplinary team. Journal of Trauma and Dissociation, 20(3), 324-339. https://doi.org/10.1080/15299732.2019.1571886

Hobbies

Rock climbing, trail running, hiking & camping. Trying to find the best pastries in town.