Dr. Ayat Jebril Nashwan is an Assistant Professor and Social Work Diploma Coordinator with the Sociology and Social Work Department at Yarmouk University in Irbid, Jordan. Dr. Nashwan is the first Jordanian person to earn a PhD in Social Work from a U.S. institution in the history of Jordan. Dr. Nashwan is proud to have studied at the UT College of Social Work. Dr. Nashwan came to the United States in 2011 prepared with a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Sociology from the University of Jordan. At the College of Social Work in Knoxville she earned her PhD in Social Work where she worked under the mentorship of Dr. Stan Bowie who chaired her dissertation committee. Her dissertation title is: Acculturative Stress and Social Support among Immigrant Arab American Adolescents in East Tennessee. After returning to Jordan, Dr. Nashwan joined the faculty at Yarmouk University where she initiated a professional social work diploma in partnership with Common Bond Institute and Michigan State University. Her most recent endeavors have included offering training entitled "English for Social Workers." The main goal for this training is to give the Jordanian students who study their program in Arabic some communication skills and terminology for social work in English so they can have better opportunity to work with International organizations that work in Jordan with refugees. In addition, Dr. Nashwan has been translating social work texts from English to Arabic for Jordanian students who cannot access and benefit from important information due to language barriers. Dr. Nashwan's most recent publication was a book chapter in Immigrant and Refugee Children and Families: Culturally Responsive Practice entitled Middle Eastern Immigrant and Refugee Children and Families. She has continued to collaborate with colleagues from the UT College of Social Work, at times using video-conferencing applications to present at conferences in the United States. Ayat Nashwan is a founding member of The Jordanian Association of Social Work.
