Faculty Directory

Robert O. Motley Jr.

Assistant Professor

Photo of Robert O. Motley Jr.

Robert O. Motley Jr.

Contact

Email: robert.motley@bc.edu

Education

  • B.A., Northeastern Illinois University
  • M.S.W., University of Illinois at Chicago
  • Ph.D., Washington University in St. Louis

Research Interests

The intersection of racism, violence, and trauma among emerging adults ages 18-29 and associated adverse mental and behavioral health outcomes.

Expertise

  • Black Communities
  • Mental Health
  • Trauma
  • Social Determinants of Health

Research Lab

July 2021: Founder and Principal Investigator of the Racism-based Violence Injury & Prevention Lab

CV or Resume

Profile

Robert O. Motley Jr., PhD, MSW, is an Assistant Professor at the Boston College School of Social Work and the Founder and Director of the Racism-Based Violence Injury & Prevention (RB-VIP) Lab. His research examines how racism-based violence—particularly perceived racism-based police violence—shapes mental and behavioral health outcomes among emerging adults (ages 18–29) from marginalized ethnic communities, including Black, Hispanic, and African immigrant populations.

Dr. Motley’s program of research originated during his doctoral training at Washington University in St. Louis, where, as a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) T32 Pre-Doctoral Fellow, he developed and validated one of the first measurement frameworks designed to capture multiple pathways of exposure to racism-based police violence, including direct victimization, in-person witnessing, and exposure through media. His dissertation work addressed a critical gap in the field by advancing culturally grounded tools capable of quantifying how often and in what ways emerging adults encounter perceived racially motivated police violence.

Since joining Boston College, Dr. Motley has expanded this foundational work into a nationally recognized research agenda. Through externally funded, mixed-methods studies, he has led efforts to refine and validate racism-based police violence exposure measures in national samples and to examine their associations with trauma-related symptoms, substance use, suicidal behavior, police contact anxiety, and help-seeking. His research has been supported by funding from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The Joyce Foundation, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and Boston College, and has been published in leading journals including JAMA Psychiatry, Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, the Journal of Adolescent Health, and the Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research.

Through the RB-VIP Lab, Dr. Motley mentors undergraduate, master’s, doctoral, and postdoctoral trainees and collaborates closely with community organizations, advisory boards, and interdisciplinary scholars to ensure that research is grounded in lived experience and positioned to inform policy, prevention, and practice. His work reframes police violence as a structural and social justice issue and generates evidence to inform trauma-responsive social work interventions, equitable public safety practices, and community healing.

Dr. Motley is a Fellow of the Society for Social Work and Research.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Motley, R. O., Jr., Roh, H., Williamson, E., McTernan, M., Garcia., M. F., & Salas-Wright, C. (2025). Validating the Exposure to Racism-Based Police Violence Scales: Insights from a National Sample of Black and Latinx Emerging Adults. Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1086/735592

Motley, R. O., Jr., Patel, P., Roh, H., & Walker, D. (2024). Police violence exposure and associated health outcomes for Latinx adults in the U.S.: A scoping review. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 25(5), 4204-4215. https://doi.org/10.1177/15248380241270078

Motley, R. O., Jr., Williamson, E., & Quinn, C. R. (2024). Prevalence and Correlates of Exposure (Direct and Indirect) to Perceived Racism-based Police Violence among Black Emerging Adult College Students. Social Work in Public Health, 39(6), 497-508. https://doi.org/10.1080/19371918.2024.2341838

Motley, R., & Baidoo, C. (2023). Racism and Accountable Policing for Black Adults in the U.S. Encyclopedia of Social Work. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199975839.013.1639

Motley, R. O., Jr, Chen, Y.C., & Motley, J. (2023). Prevalence and Correlates of Adverse Mental Health Outcomes among Male and Female Black Emerging Adults with a History of Exposure (Direct versus Indirect) to Police Use of Force. Social Work Research. https://doi.org/10.1093/swr/svad005

Motley, R. O., Jr., & Joe, S. (2023). Exposure to Police use-of-force, Perceived Police Legitimacy, and Personal Safety Interventions Among Black Emerging Adult College Students. Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research, 14(3). https://doi.org/10.1086/717586

SELECTED GRANTS

August 2022-July 2024: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: Evidence for Action Grant Award ($395,560) Principal Investigator: Robert O. Motley Jr., PhD. 

May 2019-April 2021: National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities Ruth L. Kirchstein National Research Service Award Individual Pre-Doctoral Fellowship Award (F31MD013386; $60,936) Principal Investigator: Robert O. Motley Jr., PhD. 

February 2019: Fahs-Beck Fund for Research and Experimentation Doctoral Dissertation Grant Award ($5,000) Principal Investigator: Robert O. Motley Jr., PhD.

March 2019: Researcher Resiliency Training Program Fellowship, National Institute of Mental Health (R25MH118935; $4,000) Principal Investigators: Mary McKay PhD, Sean Joe, PhD, Fred Ssewamala, PhD.

SELECTED APPOINTMENTS AND AWARDS

July 2022: Appointed as a member of BCSSW Academic Standards Review Committee

May 2022: Selected to serve on the BCSSW Executive Board

June 2021: Selected to serve on the BCSSW Doctoral Committee

November 2020: Appointed as a Teaching Fellow with the Brown School for the spring 2021 semester. Developed and taught course S31-5182.01 Special Topics: Trauma of Policing Among Marginalized Populations in America

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