SALTANAT CHILDRESS, SDUSHALIEVA@ssw.umaryland.edu 

Saltanat Childress is a PhD Candidate at the School of Social Work, University of Maryland, Baltimore. She holds her MSW from Washington University in St. Louis, George Warren Brown School of Social Work. Her dissertation project focuses on the experiences of women who have experienced gender-based violence in Kyrgyzstan in order to develop a theoretical model using methods of qualitative research and grounded theory development. Saltanat worked as a Program Coordinator for the international development programs funded by the USAID, Asian Development Bank, European Union, and other international organizations in Kyrgyzstan and elsewhere in Central Asia on issues of land tenure rights, community-based public health, social economic rehabilitation and empowerment of women. She has extensive experience in coordinating community-based programs and conducting intervention research, managing regional level public information campaigns, and liaising relations with local governments on behalf of the international development programs. Saltanat is fluent in English, Russian, and Kyrgyz.