The following faculty profile was written by first-year PhD student, Dalton Martin, following an interview with Dr. Shannon Blajeski.
Dr. Shannon Blajeski is a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work at Portland State University, where she joined the faculty in Fall 2022. Her scholarship centers on improving psychosocial outcomes for individuals with schizophrenia-spectrum conditions, particularly young adults experiencing early psychosis. Grounded in an anti-poverty and critical social work lens, her work focuses on strengthening evidence-based interventions such as Supported Employment and Education (SEE) and enhancing social work training for practice with serious mental illness.
Dr. Blajeski’s research trajectory is deeply informed by seven years of clinical and macro-level social work practice. After completing her MSW, she worked in undomiciled services, psychiatric inpatient care, and community mental health, and contributed to the implementation and evaluation of the Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) model. During our interview, she described how her early work in welfare policy – helping clients navigate Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) time limits – revealed the direct connection between individual stories and state-level policy decisions. This experience shaped her commitment to research that expresses lived experience into structural change.
Her shift from practice to research emerged while working with ACT teams, where she supported program development and became interested in improving outcomes following first psychiatric hospitalization. She noted that research offered a more sustainable way to influence systems of care than frontline clinical work alone. She subsequently earned her PhD in Social Welfare at the University of Washington School of Social Work, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship in mental health intervention research at the University of Michigan School of Social Work with these interests at the center of her dissertation.
Dr. Blajeski chose academia because of the appeal of “many spinning plates,” referring to the combination of research, teaching, and contribution to the community, all translates to no one ordinary day. Portland State University (PSU) was a contender in part because of the geographic desirability of the Pacific Northwest, as well as its strong early psychosis infrastructure and opportunities for federally funded research. Prior collaborations with the Early Assessment and Support Alliance (EASA) Center of Excellence and the Regional Research Center for Human Services further aligned with her focus on coordinated specialty care for young adults and families.
In the classroom, she teaches courses such as Social Justice in Social Work, Social Work Perspectives on Mental Health Disorders, and Advanced Qualitative Research Methods. She described her teaching as rooted in Foucauldian analysis and is committed to connecting theory with practice. She values disseminating research to the public and views social work scholarship as a critical tool for improving health care systems.
Overall, Dr. Blajeski’s work bridges clinical insight, policy awareness, and intervention research. Her career reflects a sustained commitment to advancing social work’s role in mental health services, particularly for young people navigating early psychosis within contexts shaped by poverty and structural inequality.