jennifer swanberg, ph.d.

Executive Director
Institute for Workplace Innovation (iwin)
University of Kentucky


Jennifer E. Swanberg, Ph.D., is the executive director and founder of the Institute for Workplace Innovation (iwin) at the University of Kentucky, an associate professor in the UK College of Social Work with joint appointments in the Colleges of Business and Economics, Medicine and Public Health. She is a faculty affiliate with the UK Center on Poverty Research and the Center for the Advancement of Women’s Health and is also a Research Fellow of the Boston College Work & Family Roundtable.

Dr. Swanberg is an interdisciplinary social scientist with broad research interests in understanding how social contexts of work contribute to health among individuals, how social policies affect the quality of life of individuals, and how this information can be used to improve organizational practice, policy and outcomes and social policies. My research focuses primarily on the organization of work, low-wage jobs, and antecedents of work-family conflict among underrepresented working populations.

Dr. Swanberg’s research has been published in top research journals, and she has appeared as a national and international work-family expert on television and radio including MSNBC, CNN, CBS, NPR, BBC and CBC. She has been recognized by Alliance of Work-Life Progress as one of the profession’s Rising Stars, and her research has been selected as one of the top 10 research articles by the Rosabeth Moss Kanter Award for Excellence in Work-Family Research. Dr. Swanberg also writes a work-life column for Business Lexington, one of Kentucky’s premier business publications.

Prior to coming to the University of Kentucky, Dr. Swanberg worked as a research associate at the National Center for Alcohol and Substance Abuse at Columbia University and at the Families and Work Institute (FWI) in New York City. While at FWI, she co-authored The 1997 National Study of the Changing Workforce. Dr. Swanberg serves on the boards of Kentucky Science and Technology Corporation, and the University of Kentucky Center on Poverty Research.

contact information
859.323.0585
139 W. Short St. Suite 200
Lexington, KY 40507
email