Professor

Office Address:  
357C

Phone Number:  
 

Email Address: 
[email protected]

Office Hours:
Tuesdays 5pm to 6pm
Wednesdays 5pm to 6pm
Thursdays 2pm to 4pm (Virtual)

Teaching Areas:
 

Experience:

Ronke comes to GVSU from the University of Michigan, where she received her PhD in the Joint Doctoral Program in Social Work and Anthropology. Her interdisciplinary PhD. dissertation explores the consequences of the 2013-2015 Ebola outbreak in the everyday life of Kissi communities in urban, Montserrado, and rural Lofa Counties of Liberia. Ronke’s research interests include Culture, Care, and Caregiving during Humanitarian Emergencies; Child Well-being; Kinship Relations; Intergenerational Care; Death, Loss, and Grief; Care at the End of Life; Spirituality in Social Work Research and Practice; Spirituality, Health, and Religion, Meaning-Making; Political Economy of Health; International/Global Social Work; Trauma-Informed Care; Cross-Cultural Research; Qualitative Research Methods; Community Based Participatory Research; and Intervention Research.
Ronke has taught graduate Social Work, and Undergraduate Anthropology/African American courses at the University of Michigan. Ronke loves to make connections and support her students.
A trained Chaplain, Ronke has worked as a Healthcare Chaplain, ministering to the spiritual needs of patients, families, and colleagues. A multiple award-winning journalist, Ronke focused her 17-year career on social problems and solutions, writing primarily about weak health and social systems, inequities, and unmet needs of vulnerable populations in her home country, Nigeria.

Education:

2024: PhD – University of Michigan
2017: MSW – MSW, University of Michigan 
2013: EMPA – Robert F, Wagner School of Public Policy (NYU)
2012: MTS – Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge Massachusetts
1998: MA – University of Lagos, Nigeria