Christopher Salas-Wright. Photo by Caitlin Cunningham for BC Photography.
His research on the experiences of stress and resilience among Latin American migrants who have been forced to flee their homes, and how these experiences influence mental health, has been instrumental in developing a crisis-informed theory of cultural stress, which explores how individuals and families experience stress as a result of cultural changes and challenges when migrating across national borders.
He is a mentor for three predoctoral training fellowships and dissertation awards funded by the National Institutes of Health, an NIH Diversity Supplement Award, and the UNICEF-USA Boston College Postdoctoral Fellowship, which is focused on improving the health and well-being of migrants who have been forcibly displaced because of humanitarian crises.
And he’s authored more than 250 papers, including first-author publications in journals such as the American Journal of Public Health, the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, and Current Opinion in Psychology.
Now Christopher Salas-Wright, the inaugural Barry Family Professor in Social Work and the assistant dean for the doctoral program at the Boston College School of Social Work, can add another big accomplishment to his curriculum vitae: fellow of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare.
Salas-Wright, along with nine other distinguished scholars and practitioners dedicated to achieving excellence in the field of social work and social welfare, will be inducted into honorific society on January 18 at the Society for Social Work and Research Annual Conference.
“It’s a great honor. I look at the other people who are fellows, including those who are getting inducted this year, and it’s a remarkable group of scholars who are dedicated to doing what social work scholars should be doing, which is trying to make a positive impact on society and advance our understanding of critical social issues,” said Salas-Wright, who studies behavioral health and the social, cultural, and economic challenges facing immigrants. “I feel very honored to be among peers who are doing great work, and I’m grateful to the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare for viewing my contributions as worthy of those of a fellow.”
Salas-Wright is leading two NIH-funded studies on crisis migration and cultural stress. The first, the Adelante Boricua study, focuses on Puerto Ricans displaced to the United States mainland after Hurricane María in 2017. As the only longitudinal study of “María migrants,” Adelante Boricua examines how hurricane trauma before migration and cultural stress after migration shape the resettlement experiences of migrants and influence mental health.
The second, the Venezolanos en Nuevos Entornos study, charts the experiences of nearly 2,000 Venezuelan children and adults resettling in Bogotá and Medellín, Colombia, and the U.S. state of Florida. VENE is the only longitudinal, cross-national study of Venezuelan crisis migrants, providing evidence on one of modern history’s most significant population movements.
“Professor Salas-Wright’s election to the Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare recognizes his contributions to the epidemiology and prevention of adolescent substance use and risky behavior. This work complements his contribution to cultural stress theory and a framework for understanding and preventing substance misuse among immigrants. Chris’ selection also indicates the high caliber of our faculty at BCSSW and our collective impact on the profession of social work and allied disciplines.”
Salas-Wright has also worked to adapt a school-based substance use prevention program to address the needs of young Venezuelan migrants in the U.S. The intervention included violence prevention and was piloted online with 11-to-14-year-olds.
“Professor Salas-Wright’s election to the Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare recognizes his contributions to the epidemiology and prevention of adolescent substance use and risky behavior. This work complements his contribution to cultural stress theory and a framework for understanding and preventing substance misuse among immigrants,” said BCSSW Dean Gautam N. Yadama. “Chris’ selection also indicates the high caliber of our faculty at BCSSW and our collective impact on the profession of social work and allied disciplines.”
Salas-Wright was named the inaugural Barry Family Professor in Social Work in September, a position made possible by a gift from University Trustee Steven M. Barry ’85 and his wife Tammy J. Barry ’85, M.Ed. ’87.
He serves as a standing member of NIH’s Social Psychology, Personality, and Interpersonal Processes Study Section, which reviews the scientific merit of grant applications submitted to NIH. He received the Deborah K. Padgett Early Career Achievement Award from the Society for Social Work in Research in 2019 and the National Award of Excellence in Research by a Senior Investigator from the National Hispanic Science Network in 2023. And in 2020, he was named a fellow of the Society for Social Work and Research.
After reflecting on his career trajectory, Salas-Wright said he looks forward to continuing his work to improve the health and well-being of some of the most vulnerable people in the world. “I want to continue to deepen my work with immigrant populations, to continue to understand the challenges they face, to understand the ways in which they’re thriving amid stress,” he said. “But I also want to continue to communicate what we’re learning in our research to the people who need to know it the most—the practitioners, community leaders, and the public who want to understand complex phenomena from the perspective of social work and social welfare.”
Salas-Wright, who earned a doctorate from BCSSW in 2012, joins Dean Yadama as the only current faculty members at the School to have been named fellows of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare. Other BCSSW honorees include Professor Emeriti Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes, James E. Lubben, Kevin Mahoney, and Ruth McRoy, as well as Marylou Sudders, who chaired the health and mental health fields of practice from 2012 to 2015, and David Takeuchi, who served as a professor from 2013 to 2019.
