Megan Westmore

Megan R. Westmore, LMSW (she/her), received her Master of Science in Social Work degree with a concentration in Community and Administrative Leadership from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014. She additionally holds a BSW and a bachelor’s degree in Spanish from UT Austin. She is a PhD candidate in her final year at the University of Texas at Arlington School of Social Work and has received the prestigious Norman Pauling Fellowship from the University of Texas system in recognition of outstanding accomplishments during her graduate studies.  

After completing her MSSW, Megan spent seven years in social work practice focusing on two primary areas: policy advocacy for people with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (IDD), and prevention and healing services related to sexual violence. During this time, she developed an interest in primary prevention of violence against individuals with disabilities and co-authored a healthy relationship and safer sexuality curriculum for young adults with IDD entitled My Rights My Life, published in 2022. 

Megan plans to continue this work through researching access to intimate partner and sexual violence prevention and healing services for individuals with IDD, and how such access impacts victimization. She is particularly interested in violence primary prevention programs such as healthy relationship and safer sexuality education. She utilizes mixed methods and social network analysis in her research, which allows her to answer important questions about victimization rates and prevention intervention effectiveness while also centering the voices of individuals with disabilities themselves. In addition, Megan seeks to train the next generation of social work practitioners in taking an intersectional approach to services that recognizes the strengths and needs of clients. She is passionate about incorporating open pedagogical practices into her classroom, and has experience teaching both in-person and virtually.