Jenika Towana Scott is a PhD student in Social Work at the Brown School. She earned her bachelor’s degree in political science and global studies, Magna Cum Laude, from Rutgers University in 2022, and her Master of Social Work from the University of Michigan in 2023, where she concentrated on Global Social Work, Policy, Research, and Evaluation. While pursuing her MSW, Jenika worked directly with immigrant and refugee communities, including at the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, where she advocated for expanded protections for unaccompanied immigrant youth and saw firsthand how structural conditions — not individual choices — shape well-being. During her graduate studies, she also completed an international field experience in India, where she conducted a participatory needs assessment with an Irular tribal community, contributed to grant writing and advocacy at ActionAid Association, and supported community-based teaching initiatives. Together, these experiences strengthened her commitment to culturally grounded, community-driven research and deepened her understanding of how structural conditions shape the health and well-being of historically marginalized communities, particularly women and youth. Her current research examines how structural conditions contribute to well-being and wellness outcomes among Black women, with a particular focus on Afro-Caribbean women. She argues that wellness must be understood at the meso and structural levels to meaningfully improve outcomes for this population, and that intersectional and culturally grounded asset- and capacity-building approaches can serve as protective mechanisms and inform equitable policies and community-driven interventions.
