Faculty and Staff

Manisha Joshi, Ph.D., MPH, MSW Associate Professor Phone: 813-974-6685 Office: MHC 1422 Send email

Dr. Manisha Joshi is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Work, where her work focuses on violence against women and children (VAWC), mental health, and social work education and practice. She holds a Ph.D. in Social Welfare from the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy & Practice, an MS in Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health, and an MSW from the University of Delhi, India. With a joint appointment in the College of Public Health at the University of South Florida (USF), Dr. Joshi also serves as a Senior Research Scientist with the Harrell Center for the Study of Family Violence.

Dr. Joshi is the co-founder and Director of the USF School of Social Work Interdisciplinary Lab (SWIRL) which focuses on promotion of mental health in global settings. This lab fosters inter-professional collaboration across disciplines, offering interdisciplinary training to students in social work, public health, biomedical sciences, psychology and other fields, with the goal of cultivating collaborative, trauma-informed and person-centered care practices.
 
Dr. Joshi currently serves as Principal Investigator of Simulation for Competency Optimization in Practice & Education in Social Work (SCOPE-AI), a project funded by the Florida Center for Behavioral Health Workforce. SCOPE-AI brings together an interdisciplinary team from social work, artificial intelligence, nursing, and healthcare to develop AI-powered virtual client simulations for clinical training. The project provides students and behavioral health professionals with realistic, competency-based opportunities to strengthen interviewing, assessment, clinical decision-making, and intervention skills in a safe and repeatable learning environment. Through SCOPE-AI, Dr. Joshi’s work continues to advance interdisciplinary collaboration and innovative approaches to social work education and behavioral health workforce development. In 2021, Dr. Joshi, in collaboration with Dr. Panchanadeswaran, secured a grant from Adelphi University to conduct a qualitative study on the access and utilization of services by immigrant South Asian women survivors of intimate partner violence. This research also involved interviewing both mainstream and South Asian service providers to gain insights into the barriers these survivors face in receiving care. In 2018, she and Dr. Rahill were awarded the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Global Grand Challenges grant for their study, Krik Krak: Mental Health for Pregnant Haitian Teens. Furthermore, Dr. Joshi’s leadership in global health education was recognized through the prestigious India-U.S. 21st Century Knowledge Initiative Award 2026-2019 by the The United States-India Educational Foundation (Fulbright Commission in India), which funded the establishment of an Indigenous Studies Field School for Global Exchange in Northeast India. She has also served as a co-investigator in an R24 grant (2013-2018) - SHARE Haiti: Syndemics HIV/AIDS Research and Education funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Joshi has a track record in both qualitative and quantitative research, with her work published in leading peer-reviewed journals including the American Journal of Public Health, Psychology of Women Quarterly, Journal of Affective Disorders, and Violence Against Women.
 
Dr. Joshi’s commitment to interdisciplinary student mentorship is reflected in the achievements of SWIRL scholars. In 2026, SWIRL scholar Sirinandini Amperayani, mentored by Dr. Joshi, was selected for the prestigious United Nations Millennium Fellowship, marking the second consecutive year that a SWIRL undergraduate received this distinction. Amperayani’s project, The Mirror Movement, addresses self-perception, health, and access to supportive resources among individuals experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity, including survivors of intimate partner violence. Her selection was part of USF’s largest-ever Millennium Fellowship cohort, chosen from a record-breaking global applicant pool of more than 76,000 students across more than 6,000 campuses.
 
In the classroom, Dr. Joshi is a dedicated educator, teaching a range of undergraduate and graduate courses including social work educator, social work macro practice, research and statistics, and introduction to social work. She is a passionate advocate for global social work education, and in 2014, she co-developed and led the first study abroad program focused on the sociocultural context of health in India for the USF School of Social Work. Following the success of the India program, Dr. Joshi and Dr. Iraida Carrion launched another study abroad program in Spain in 2017. They celebrated a decade of Study Abroad initiatives for the USF School of Social Work in 2023.

Dr. Joshi’s contributions to teaching and education have been widely recognized. In 2019, she was honored with the USF Student Success/Academic Excellence Award and the USF Ambassadors Apple Polishing Award, the latter being sponsored by the USF Alumni Association. Her outstanding teaching was further acknowledged with the USF System-wide Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award for 2015-2016, a testament to her excellence across all USF campuses.