Social welfare researcher Pegah Naemi Jimenez receives KU Research Achievement Award
LAWRENCE — University of Kansas researchers expanding our understanding of special education, social welfare and particle physics have received this year’s Steven F. Warren Research Achievement Award and the KU Research Staff & Postdoctoral Achievement Awards.
The annual awards recognize outstanding unclassified academic staff, unclassified professional staff and postdoctoral fellows whose research has significantly influenced their fields and expanded intellectual or societal insights. This year’s recipients:
- Pegah Naemi Jimenez, associate researcher senior, School of Social Welfare, Research Staff Achievement Award
- Tyler Hicks, director of quantitative methodology, KU Center on Developmental Disabilities, Steven F. Warren Research Achievement Award
- Georgios Konstantinos Krintiras, postdoctoral researcher, physics & astronomy, Postdoctoral Achievement Award
The three will be recognized at a ceremony this spring along with recipients of other major KU research awards.
The Office of Research established the Steven F. Warren Research Achievement Award in 2006 to honor unclassified academic staff researchers. Winners receive $10,000 in research funds. The KU Research Staff & Postdoctoral Achievement awards were established in 2018, with honorees receiving $5,000 for approved research or professional development activities.
Pegah Naemi Jimenez
Pegah Naemi Jimenez is an associate researcher senior in the School of Social Welfare. Prior to her current role, Naemi Jimenez was an associate researcher at KU’s Center for Public Partnerships & Research from 2015 to 2021.
Naemi Jimenez’s scholarship focuses on cross-system approaches and community-engaged research that addresses social problems experienced by children and families in marginalized communities. This involves working with communities, practitioners and other interested parties, such as state agencies in Kansas, Missouri and Texas. She has received multiple federal grants to support this work.
Naemi Jimenez serves as the principal investigator on three multiyear state and federally funded research projects: Safe Sleep Program Evaluation, in partnership with the Missouri Children’s Trust Fund; THRIVE, a sexual health program for foster care professionals and youth involved in foster care, in collaboration with the University of Texas at Austin; and Kansas Bravely Raising and Activating Voices for Equity, a collaborative initiative that centers Black and Brown youth and family experts to advance racial equity in child welfare, for which she recently was awarded $2.5 million in federal funding to implement. She also leads evaluation for Kansas Strong: Parent Youth Facilitation Strategy and the Racial Equity Collaborative. At the university level, Naemi Jimenez represents the School of Social Welfare on the Campus Council on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging.
Naemi Jimenez’s equity research goes far beyond the region. She also conducted a study of how Iranian women use social media in social justice movements.
She earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of California, Davis, a master’s degree in psychology from California State University at Sacramento and a doctorate in social psychology from KU.