Noel Busch-Armendariz, Ph.D.

About

Noël Bridget Busch is an Associate Professor at the School of Social Work at The University of Texas at Austin, teaching graduate courses in administration and planning, social policy, research, and domestic violence. She also recently developed a course on sexual assault. Dr. Busch is the Principal Investigator of the UT Institute on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault. IDVSA is a collaboration between the School of Social Work, the School of Nursing, and the School of Law with over a dozen other affiliate community organizations. Since joining UT six years ago, Dr. Busch has managed over $1.4 million dollars of external funding and previously directed research for the Office of the Attorney General, the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault, and the Texas Health and Human Service Commission. To date, she has managed more than 20 research projects. Her areas of specialization are interpersonal violence, refugees, victims of trafficking and asylees, and international social work.

Prior to moving to Austin, she was the Director of Research and Special Projects and the Interim Director of the South Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault. Dr. Busch has more than 14 years experience working to end violence against women and their children and has worked as a battered woman's advocate, support group leader, program director, and registered lobbyist. She has worked directly with incarcerated battered women who killed their batterers and regularly facilitates therapeutic support groups. She also regularly trains professionals on issues of violence against women and their children at local, state, and national meetings and conferences and has published many articles on the topic. She is the trainer with the Protective Services Training Institute where she teaches child welfare workers about the links between child maltreatment and domestic violence and adult protective service workers about sexual abuse of vulnerable adults. Dr. Busch has served as an expert witness in more than a dozen criminal, civil, and immigration cases involving domestic violence and sexual assault.

Dr. Busch began working with refugees and immigrants in 1986 as an immigrant assistant and currently serves as the Principal Investigator of the Green Leaf Project, a project that provides intensive health and mental health services to refugees, victims of trafficking, asylees, and other immigrants in Central Texas. She is also the Principal Investigator of several research projects exploring the needs of refugee and asylee families and victims of human trafficking. Dr. Busch recently published an article on human trafficking in The Journal of Social Work Research and Evaluation: An International Publication and has several other publications in this area of study. Over the past twenty years, Dr. Busch has traveled extensively throughout the world visiting more than 30 countries and she has lived and worked in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, Romania, Albania, and South Korea.

Dr. Busch serves on the board of directors for the Political Asylum Project of Austin (PAPA) and participates in several other statewide task force initiatives. She is a volunteer with the Victim Services of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in the Victim Offender Mediated Dialog (VOMD) program. She serves on the editorial boards of AFFILIA: The Journal of Women and Social Work and The Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies: International, National, and Regional Theory, Research, and Practice.

Dr. Busch earned a Master of Public Administration (MPA), Master of Social Work (MSW), and Doctorate of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degrees from the University of South Carolina. She is a licensed social worker and a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer. Dr. Busch has been recognized for her contributions to social work and in 2006, she was awarded the Recent Most Distinguished Contributions to Social Work Education by the Council on Social Work Education. She was recently awarded tenure and promoted to Associate Professor.


Professional Interests
Violence against women and children; social and public policy; social justice; international social work education, training and practice; and adoption and child welfare issues.

Education
Ph.D., University of South Carolina
M.P.A., University of South Carolina
M.S.W., University of South Carolina
Teaching History

Faculty Research
Human Trafficking Coalition Project Evaluation: Phase II (2009)
Evaluation of the Needs of Human Trafficking Victims in Texas (2008)
Teen Dating Violence (2008)
Human Trafficking Coalition Project Evaluation (2007)
The Greenleaf Project (2007)
Evaluation of the BabySafe Program (2006)
Dating Violence Prevention Project (2005)
Exploring Employability for Refugee Families in Central Texas (2005)
The Extent of Substance Use Problems among Women Partner Abuse Survivors Residing in Domestic Violence Shelters (2005)
Defining and Assessing Spirituality for Women Coping With Partner Abuse (2004)
Healthy Marriage Initiatives for Refugee Families (2004)
A Health Survey of Texans: A Focus on Sexual Assault Experiences (2003)
Adolescent mothers speak out about their lives and relationships: Listening to young mothers talk about interpersonal violence (2003)
Evaluation of the BabySafe Program for Pregnant Battered Women (2003)
The Development of Outcome Measures for Sexual Assault Organizations in Texas (2003)