Viola Vaughan-Eden, PhD, MSW, MJ 

Viola Vaughan-Eden, PhD, MSW, MJ is a Professor and the PhD Program Director at the Ethelyn R. Strong School of Social Work at Norfolk State University in Southeastern Virginia. She also serves as the President and CEO of UP For Champions, a nonprofit partnered with The UP Institute, a think tank dedicated to upstream solutions for child abuse prevention.

A forensic and licensed clinical social worker, Dr. Vaughan-Eden consults on and provides expert testimony in child maltreatment cases, with a specific focus on sexual abuse. She is President Emerita and Fellow of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children, President Emerita of the National Partnership to End Interpersonal Violence, and Past President of the National Organization of Forensic Social Work. She also serves as a child welfare advisor to the National Family Violence Law Center at George Washington University and board member of the Beau Biden Foundation for the Protection of Children. She is an Advisory Board Member of Darkness to Light, having served as a Board Director (2015-2019).

Dr. Vaughan-Eden lectures nationally and internationally to multidisciplinary professional audiences on child welfare and violence prevention. She contributes to several peer-reviewed journals and is editor-in-chief of the six-volume NPEIV Handbook of Interpersonal Violence and Abuse Across the Lifespan (2022). She also co-authored the national APSAC Practice Guidelines on Forensic Interviewing of Children in both 2012 and 2023. Her contributions have earned numerous accolades, including the 2024 Alumni Stars Award from Virginia Commonwealth University, 2023 Outstanding Individual in Academia Award from the Congressional Research Institute for Social Work and Policy, the 2020 NOFSW Sol Gothard Lifetime Achievement Award, and the 2012 NASW-Virginia Chapter Lifetime Achievement Award.

She has a PhD in Social Work from Virginia Commonwealth University, a Master of Social Work from Norfolk State University, and a Master of Jurisprudence in Children’s Law and Policy from Loyola University Chicago School of Law. See www.violavaughaneden.com