Dr. Carolyn West is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Washington, where she teaches courses on Family Violence and Human Sexuality. She writes, trains, consults, and lectures internationally on interpersonal violence and sexual assault, with a special focus on African American women.
She has developed culturally sensitive domestic violence/sexual assault training material for a variety of organizations, including the Supreme Court of Ohio and City of Seattle Human Services Division. Dr. West frequently delivers keynote addresses and workshops for State Coalitions Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault (California, Maryland, Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin).
Dr. West has lectured internationally and conducted workshops and presented papers at more than 100 conferences, including those of the American Psychological Association. She has given invited presentations at universities around the country, including Harvard University, Howard University School of Divinity, and Columbia University Law School.
Dr. West also has given television, radio, newspaper, and magazine interviews (Essence, Washington Post, National Public Radio). She has served as an expert witness in domestic violence cases involving victim-defendants (women who use violence in self-defense) and testified at Congressional Briefings in Washington, DC.
As an award-winning scholar, Dr. West has authored or co-authored more than 40 journal articles and book chapters. She is editor/contributor of Violence in the Lives of Black Women: Battered, Black, and Blue which was published by Haworth Press in 2002 (winner of the 2004 Carolyn Payton Early Career Award).
In recognition of her scholarship, she received the Outstanding Research Award in the Field of Domestic Violence in the African American Community from the University of Minnesota’s Institute on Domestic Violence in the African American Community (2000). In 2005, she was honored as the first holder of the Bartley Dobb Professorship for the Study and Prevention of Violence. Dr. West also is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association.
Her commitment to helping survivors stems from her personal experience. At the age of 23, while pursuing her doctoral degree, Dr. West became a victim of academic sexual harassment. Faculty members and students told her to give up the fight. Instead, she became an activist. She mobilized other students and worked to change the sexual harassment policies at her university.
She found her voice and began giving interviews to the local and national media
(read more).
After several unsuccessful attempts to resolve the problem within the university judicial system, she filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The University of Missouri offered her a settlement.
After the legal action, Dr. West entered the 7th year of an eight year doctoral program. This meant that she had one year to complete a pre-doctoral internship and dissertation. “Virtually impossible,” she was told by several professors.
Unwilling to give up her childhood dream of becoming a Clinical Psychologist, she moved to the University of Notre Dame and successfully completed her pre-doctoral internship and dissertation.
Graduation Day, 1994
Less than one week after graduation, she moved to Illinois State University to complete a teaching and clinical postdoctoral fellowship in the Student Counseling Center and Psychology Department. The next year, she moved to the University of New Hampshire’s Family Research Laboratory. Two years later she accepted a faculty position at the University of Washington.
Dr. West and colleagues
Her life is a testimony to the power of perseverance and the ability of dreams to inspire and transform human life and institutions. Dr. West has discovered her life purpose: To promote peace and healing through training, education, and consulting.
Dr. West is an aspiring cow girl. She also enjoys community theater and self-defense training.
