Laurens G. Van Sluytman, PhD, LCSWc, is an assistant dean and professor at the School of Social Work at Morgan State University. His research agenda focuses on disparities among members of marginalized communities. His long-term career goals are 1) to investigate and elaborate the processes among micro- (individual risk and behavior), meso- (groups, families, and social networks), and macro-level factors (employment, schools, communities, and healthcare) trends in employment, incarceration, and environmental stress); 2) to contribute to developing and testing models of how individual, community, and local/global-level factors influence disparate health outcomes; 3) to develop effective evidence-based interventions with marginalized communities. Van Sluytman is also a curriculum developer, program evaluator, and psychotherapist in private practice.