Institute Director
Noël Bridget Busch-Armendariz, Ph.D., LMSW, MPA, is a nationally recognized expert in sexual assault, human trafficking, and domestic violence. She has conducted research funded by a variety of federal and state agencies such as the National Science Foundation, Department of Justice’s, National Institute of Justice, Office of Victims of Crimes, and the Office of Violence and Women, the Texas Office of the Attorney General and the Governor of Texas, Criminal Justice Division. As IDVSA’s director Busch-Armendariz strives to put her research findings into the hands of game changers, which led to her serving as a member of the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault. Learn more
Institute Co-Directors
Matt Kammer-Kerwick, Ph.D., is the Director of the Bureau of Business Research and an NSF-funded Research Scientist at the IC2 Institute. He is the principal investigator of the study Disrupting Exploitation and Trafficking Labor Supply Networks in Post-Harvey Rebuild, which is exploring the use of stochastic games and agent-based models to assess and develop disruptive interventions for illicit supply chains. He is also a co-principal investigator on projects with IDVSA. Learn more
Jeana Lungwitz, JD, is a Clinical Professor in the Domestic Violence Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law and a shareholder with Lungwitz & Lungwitz, P.C. She is an appointed member of the Supreme Court Protective Order Taskforce. Ms. Lungwitz graduated from Texas Tech School of Law in 1989 and was licensed in the state of Texas that same year. She co-founded the Domestic Violence Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law with Sarah Buel in the fall of 1997. The Domestic Violence Clinic allows law students the opportunity to represent victims of domestic violence in Travis County, Texas, while being supervised by a licensed attorney. Learn more
Rubén Parra-Cardona, Ph.D., is an associate professor at the University of Texas School of Social Work. He comes to these roles from the Michigan State University where he studied Latino families and culturally adapted intervention techniques and was associate director of the MSU Research Consortium on Gender-Based Violence. He frequently collaborates on research across the U.S.-Mexico border, as vice-president of the Family Process Institute and a clinical faculty member and researcher in the Instituto Regional de Estudios de la Familia. Learn more
Donna Rolin joined IDVSA as a Co-Director from the School of Nursing in spring 2017. She brings with her an extensive background in psychiatric nursing, with a research specialization in community psychiatry and substance use disorders. As assistant professor of Clinical Nursing at UT Austin she collaborates across departments including the School of Social Work, School of Medicine, and with local agencies like Refugee Services of Texas. Dr. Rolin has experience in multiple clinical settings and works with patients who are survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking, as well as under-served communities in the Austin area. Learn more
Institute Team Members