Early Career Success Award
Michaela Jackson-Smith, MSW ’23, recently advanced to Licensed Independent Social Worker and earned her MSW and Certificate in Trauma-Informed Practice from Case Western Reserve University in 2023. Previously, she earned her bachelor’s degree in Africana Studies from Wellesley College. After working as a management consultant in the Washington, D.C., area for five years, Michaela felt called to return home to Northeast Ohio and join the social work field. She was honored to be awarded the Louis Stokes Fellowship in Community and Social Development to pursue her master's degree from the Mandel School.
Since graduating, Michaela has worked in many capacities and settings across the field. She has worked as a therapist with youth in intensive residential treatment at Bellefaire JCB and coached an experiential education program called Motogo, which teaches youth to disassemble and rebuild motorcycles and engines. She works with the Mandel School’s Center on Trauma and Adversity to facilitate training and healing interventions in the community, focusing on trauma-responsive care and combating the indirect trauma that helping professionals experience. Michaela has also served as an adjunct professor at the Mandel School, teaching two master's-level courses—one on grief and the other on trauma-informed social work practice with youth and families.
Michaela’s primary role is mental health clinician and director of treatment integrity at Hope Meadows Foundation, a nonprofit equine-assisted counseling and wellness center in Medina County, Ohio. As a therapist, she combines her 20+ years of horse experience with specialized training in the neurobiology of trauma and multiple therapeutic modalities. In her newly created director position, she oversees treatment fidelity, leads program evaluation and quality improvement efforts, and coordinates research endeavors aimed at growing the evidence base for the field of equine-assisted psychotherapy. She recently helped launch the first research study to be conducted at Hope Meadows.
Louis Stokes Community Service Leadership Award
Tiffany Hollin Wright, MSSA ’10, is a Licensed Master Social Worker, MSW clinical therapist, group facilitator, and juvenile and domestic relations mediator who transforms lives through expert coaching, mentoring, training and alternative dispute resolution. With over 25 years of human services experience, she brings empathy, skill and caring to her work with Divine Constructs Consulting. Her practice specializes in business owner growth, career advancement, workforce development and family mediation. Her unique combination of social work and economic insight provides her clients with holistic support for sustainable growth.
With advanced degrees in economics, social administration, public health and biochemistry, her coaching addresses life transitions, parent education, financial resilience, entrepreneurial anxiety and team development. She guides her clients in creating personalized pathways, tapping the solutions within themselves. She affirms her clients, building their sense of agency and meeting them where they are. She helps them assess their current work and life positioning and then uses her professional, personal and academic experiences and resources to help them reach their aspirational goals.
Tiffany is an entrepreneur and the leader of Hollin Wright Enterprises, LLC, in Colonial Heights, Virginia. She has also been a financial services and regulatory executive for 15+ years in the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Department of the Treasury, and a Certified Financial Social Worker. She brings this insight into financial decision-making, career planning and small business development mentoring and coaching.
Through her mediator and parent education certifications with the Virginia Judicial System, she creates neutral spaces to facilitate complex custody, visitation, employment, business and family transition conversations.
Nonprofit Leadership Award
Elizabeth “Beth” Ann Embrescia, MSSA ’94, has over 30 years of experience, including serving nonprofit organizations in positions focused on fund development strategy, donor engagement, philanthropic culture and best-practice governance. Beth serves as Vice President of Judson Foundation, a supporting organization of Judson, a 120-year-old senior living nonprofit in Cleveland. Previously, she held roles as Senior Director of Presidential & University Programs and Senior Director of Development at Case Western Reserve University. She’s led and completed campaigns with colleagues, including a university $100M campaign for scholarships across the university. She built and led fund development strategy for the Flora Stone Mather Center for Women at CWRU and designed and drove women’s philanthropy initiatives.
Beth served 11 years as a board member and past chair of the Board of Trustees of Laurel School, a 130-year-old PreK-12 girls’ school in Shaker Heights, Ohio. She is trustee emerita and was co-chair of Laurel’s capital campaign. She continues to sit on the board’s governance and fund development committees. She is a founding member and past president of the Community Advisory Board of the CWRU Flora Stone Mather Center for Women. Over the last 25 years, Beth has served on additional boards and committees of various nonprofits, including the Chagrin Falls Educational Foundation Board and St. Martin De Porres. Beth started her career as a clinical social worker.
Still dedicated to the profession, Beth mentors social work students and has supervised practitioners. At the CWRU Mandel School, Beth sits on the Dean’s Visiting Committee and has served on the school's Capital Campaign, Centennial and Scholarship Campaign Committees. Beth holds a BA in Political Science & Sociology from Miami University and an MSSA (MSW) from the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences at CWRU. She holds a Women’s Leadership Certificate from CWRU Weatherhead Executive Education and a certificate in high-performing teams from the CWRU Mandel School. Beth is a Supervising Licensed Independent Social Worker.
Distinguished Alumna Award ~ Highest Honor
Kimberly Resnick Anderson, MSSA ’94, LCSW, is an AASECT-certified sex therapist, speaker, writer, researcher, professor and media personality with nearly 35 years of experience treating individuals, couples and groups. Her “Comfort-Inducing Sexuality Dialogue” clinical model is touted as helping save the marriages of hundreds of her clients. She is a licensed social worker in Arizona, California and Ohio, and provides web-based coaching and consultation to clients around the world.
Kimberly conducts support groups, couples’ retreats, clinical intensive, and traditional psychotherapy, with a special interest in the impact of chronic and acute illness on sexual function and satisfaction.
As an on-air expert for Inside Success TV's Love Experts and host of the Sex Savvy podcast, Kimberly is a sought-after global speaker who has presented at sexual medicine conferences around the world. She has been featured in medical journals and quoted in over 25 countries by publications like Playboy, CNN, Cosmopolitan, The Vice, The Huffington Post, Shape, The Daily Mail and USA Today.
Kimberly has been involved with graduate education since the early 1990s, training hundreds of medical students as assistant professor of psychiatry at UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine and as assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Northeast Ohio Medical University (NEOMED) in Rootstown, Ohio. Before leaving Ohio for Scottsdale, Arizona, in 2014, Kimberly enjoyed serving as adjunct clinical faculty at the Mandel School, where she taught human sexuality, in addition to offering CEU programs on a variety of sexual health topics.
Kimberly became the first social worker appointed assistant clinical professor at NEOMED in the history of its existence; she is one of only a handful of master’s-level professionals to earn the same position at the nationally ranked David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. She was also the first non-MD/PhD to create and serve as director of a center at Summa Health Systems, where she created and ran The Summa Center for Sexual Health from 2006–2013.
Professional Achievement Award
Shantha Balaswamy, PhD ’92, is an accomplished social work educator, scholar, mentor and community leader whose more than 30 years of service reflect a deep commitment to social justice and community well-being. She is an associate professor in the College of Social Work at The Ohio State University and holds a visiting faculty appointment at the Madras School of Social Work in Chennai, India.
As an educator, Shantha has mentored generations of BSSW, MSW and doctoral students in the U.S. and internationally. For 16 years, she led Ohio State’s India Study Abroad Program, providing students with transformative opportunities to develop global perspectives on social work education and practice.
Her scholarship focuses on improving services and outcomes for older adults experiencing mistreatment and for immigrant and refugee survivors of domestic violence. Her research has been supported by major grants and has contributed to practice, policy and community-based services at local, national and international levels. She serves on many state, national and international boards and is committed to sharing her professional expertise.
Shantha’s commitment to service is particularly evident through her 21 years of leadership with ASHA RAY of HOPE, a nonprofit organization serving survivors of domestic violence. As board president and volunteer director, she expanded services to underserved immigrant and refugee communities, established a 24/7 statewide helpline, secured sustained funding, strengthened community partnerships and advanced advocacy for equitable access to services.
Her leadership also extends to aging and international collaboration. She established the Center for Excellence in Aging at the Madras School of Social Work to improve the quality of life for older adults through practice and research.
Shantha’s career reflects the very best of social work: Educating the next generation, advancing knowledge and turning compassion into meaningful action. Her enduring impact is evident in the students she has inspired, the professionals she has mentored, the communities she has strengthened, and the lives she has touched.