2025 Rhoda G. Sarnat Lecture featuring Abigail Palmer Molina, PhD

Abigail “Abby” Palmer Molina is a Neubauer Family Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice.

Before joining the faculty at the University of Chicago, Abigail earned her PhD in Social Work from the University of Southern California and her AM in Social Service Administration from the University of Chicago. She completed her undergraduate studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Abigail is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and has completed two clinical fellowships: the Illinois Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and related Disabilities (LEND) program and an Advanced Clinical Social Work Fellowship at the Yale Child Study Center.

Prior to joining to the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice, Abigail was on the faculty at Erikson Institute.

Palmer Molina’s research focuses on promoting infant and early childhood mental health and parent/caregiver resilience, with an emphasis on advancing mental health equity for marginalized, low-income parents of young children. Much of her work centers on developing and implementing cross-system family interventions for multiply stressed mothers, particularly those experiencing depression. The overarching goal of her work is to promote a “whole family” approach to mental health and well-being that co-locates services for both children and parents and views caregivers as deeply deserving of support and investment. Palmer Molina has partnered with children’s mental health services, Head Start, and home visiting programs, both locally and nationally. 

Palmer Molina approaches her research as a scholar-practitioner and translational scientist, informing intervention development and implementation from a social justice perspective. She integrates multiple interdisciplinary perspectives in her work and utilizes advanced qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods approaches.

Palmer Molina’s research has been supported by both private and public sources, including the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the Cook County Justice Advisory Council, the Parents as Teachers National Center, and the Harris Foundation. Her work has been published in Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research, the Journal of Affective Disorders, and Children and Youth Services Review. She also contributed a chapter to Family Engagement in Mental Health Interventions for Young Children (Springer, 2024).

Palmer Molina is also deeply committed to the on-going development and diversification of the infant and early childhood mental health (IECMH workforce). As part of her work, she helped develop a specialized curricular guide for infant and early childhood mental health in association with the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) and has led efforts to bring together social work faculty in the Midwest to address diversity and social justice within IECMH.