Rachel E. Gartner, PhD, MSW is a Lecturer in the School of Applied Social Studies, University College Cork. Her research investigates the role of violence and discrimination across individual, interpersonal, and systemic factors with the goal of capacitating systems to better meet the needs of minoritized populations. Her recent research has focused on building structural competence in college health and counseling centers to meet the needs of students involved in alcohol involved sexual violence, particularly transgender and gender diverse students, who are more likely to experience harm.  She is currently conducting a cluster randomized control trial aimed at assessing the feasibility of a community-developed intervention designed to increase provider competence supporting transgender and gender diverse students across 17 college health and counseling centers in the United States. 

Dr. Gartner is a former prevention educator, program manager/developer, and evaluator. She holds a BA in Psychology and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies  as well as an MSW from Washington University in St. Louis. She earned her PhD at the University of California - Berkeley. She loves supporting students and is passionate about building the next generation of social workers. She welcomes prospective students and encourages students and community members interested in violence prevention, community-centered research methodologies, and research with queer and trans communities to contact her.