Dr. Mark Macgowan
Focus
Disaster Mental Health, Evidence-Based Group Work, Adolescent Suicidality
Dr. Mark Macgowan serves as Associate Dean of Academic Affairs for Stempel College and Professor of Social Work. Dr. Macgowan is an experienced researcher, educator, and clinician, who is active in community and professional service.
His research advances effective practices and teaching related to psychosocial well-being and disasters, group work, and adolescent suicidality. His recent publications include systematic reviews of interventions for people affected by mass casualty events, adolescent suicidality, and the effectiveness of remotely delivered group therapies. He is the author of Guide to Evidence-Based Group Work and co-author of Group Work Research, both with Oxford University Press, and co-editor of Evidence-Based Group Work in Community Settings and IASWG Standards for Social Work with Groups, both with Taylor & Francis. He is currently under contract as co-editor for the International Handbook on Social Work with Groups (Routledge Press).
Dr. Macgowan currently serves on two federally funded projects. He is Co-PI on a clinical trial of a clinician-supported mobile app for 911 responders, funded through CDC. He also serves on a NIST-funded project collecting social science data related to the Champlain Towers South building collapse in Surfside, Florida. He was also recently PI on a federally funded project establishing a hurricane response technical assistance center serving Miami‐Dade and Escambia Counties, Florida, through the National Network of Public Health Institutes.
Dr. Macgowan teaches FIU’s only graduate course on disaster mental health and trains health professionals on best practices related to psychosocial response to mass casualty events. As a licensed therapist, he has served as a disaster mental health worker with the American Red Cross and currently serves as a behavioral health specialist with a federal Disaster Medical Assistance Team (FL-5 DMAT), deploying numerous times to federally declared disaster areas.
Dr. Macgowan is active in international, national, and local service. He serves on editorial boards of numerous peer-reviewed scholarly journals and an NIH special emphasis panel/scientific review group. He is active on the Executive Committee of the International Association of Social Work with Groups (IASWG) and led a multinational project that developed online considerations for the IASWG Standards for the Practice of Social Work with Groups. Locally, he serves on the steering committee with the Florida Institute for Group Facilitation, a joint program with SunServe and IASWG to help improve the effectiveness of group work for populations affected by health-related challenges.
Dr. Macgowan has received multiple local, national, and international awards for excellence in teaching, research, and service and has been the recipient of two prestigious international Fulbright awards to Scotland and Spain.