Meet Our Faculty
The Department of Social Work is proud to be guided by a dedicated team of educators, scholars, and practitioners who bring a wealth of experience, compassion, and academic rigor to the classroom.Their commitment to student success and to advancing the field of social work is at the heart of our program. Please see below for faculty of both our Master of Social Work and Bachelor of Social Work programs:
Kimberly Setterlund, MSW, LCSW, is responsible for the direction and administration of graduate programming in the Department of Social Work, including the creation, implementation, and quality of the MSW curriculum. Her academic experience includes directing the field education program at APU and coordinating the Mental Health Stipend Program at the School of Social Work at California State University, San Bernardino. She possesses social work practice expertise in medical and behavioral health settings, and has worked on interprofessional teams, including at City of Hope National Medical Center, as well as in wraparound services for high-risk youth. She also directed a psychosocial rehabilitation program for adults with chronic mental health conditions and co-occurring disorders. Setterlund’s scholarship interests include faculty thriving, inter-professional education in higher education, interprofessional collaborative practice in healthcare settings, perinatal mental health issues, clergy/mental health collaboration, and clergy thriving in ministry. She also maintains a private clinical practice.
Mary Rawlings, PhD, LCSW, is interested in competency-based education, student development of clinical skills necessary for entry-level practice, assessing outcomes of social work education, and experiential learning models (such as simulation and service-learning) that can enhance student education outcomes. She is a licensed clinical social worker with more than 10 years of practice experience, and her practice interests are in women’s issues, child welfare, and chronic and persistent mental illness. She conducts research in developing observed structured clinical exams for evaluation of social work skills and integrating SBIRT training into professional curriculum.
Regina Chow Trammel, PhD, LCSW, is professor of the Master of Social Work program at Azusa Pacific University. She has spent more than a decade in private practice and has years of experience in psychiatric and medical social work settings. She is an avid mindfulness practitioner, has academic research publications on Christian mindfulness, a popular TEDx talk on mindfulness, and co-wrote, A Counselor's Guide to Christian Mindfulness: Engaging the Mind, Body, and Soul in Biblical Practices and Therapies, published by Zondervan/Harper Collins Christian.
Jean Un, PhD, LCSW has more than 25 years of clinical social work experience, providing bilingual mental health services to Asian individuals and families in public and private sectors, including faith-based settings. She also volunteered in the community for more than 10 years mobilizing leaders and volunteers in program and fundraising/resource development. As the director of practicum education and a clinical supervisor, she has been passionate about developing the next generation of social workers and clinicians. Un’s research interests include best practices in practicum education, mental health awareness and education in Asian churches, and the psychological well-being of bicultural Asian American students in higher education. She also shares her expertise in couples work and mental health as a consultant and educator with local Asian churches. She maintains a private counseling practice specializing in Asian American mental health, couples and families, intergenerational/cultural issues, and spiritual integration.
Regina C. Trammel Ph.D., LCSW, is an assistant professor in the Master of Social Work program and is passionate about mentoring students so they can improve the lives of others as social workers. Her background is in clinical social work practice, which includes more than a decade in private practice in the Chicago area, as well as experience in psychiatric and medical social work settings.
Margaret Lee, PhD, MSW, is an assistant professor in the MSW program at Azusa Pacific University. As a macro social worker, she has worked in local government and nonprofit sectors, with expertise in policy analysis and implementation, strategic planning and nonprofit development, and program management. She is an advisor to local nonprofits and is a project manager with Making Housing and Community Happen, a faith-based housing justice organization. Her research interests include mental health policy, housing policy, and faith-based strategies for social and racial justice. As an educator, she has taught a variety of courses in BSW and MSW programs, and is the course lead for diversity and social justice, social welfare policy and policy practice, and organizational behavior and management. She is the cofounder and cochair of the National Association of Social Workers California Chapter’s Policy Consortium.
Evelyn Castro-Guillen, PhD, LCSW, has more than 30 years of social work experience in private, nonprofit, community-based mental health agencies, having worked with adults, families, and children in underserved, culturally diverse communities in southeast Los Angeles County and the San Gabriel Valley. She has extensive experience working with large county systems such as the departments of mental health, children and family services, and public health, as well as First 5 LA and various private foundations. Guillen has developed and implemented programs in the areas of school-based mental health and birth-to-five home visitation, and has served on several community advisory boards. Throughout her career, she has held a variety of positions within agencies, from clinician to executive level. Her research interests include the relationship between mental health and academic achievement in school settings, and the use of reflective supervision as an agency-wide model in social work agencies.
Virginia Olivas, MSW, is in her ninth year as a member of the Azusa Pacific University field practicum faculty in the MSW program. She serves as the program coordinator of the LA DCFS Child Welfare Program. Olivas teaches practicum classes for the full-time generalist foundation year cohort as well as the generalist foundation year child welfare supplemental seminar class. As a bilingual and bicultural social worker, Olivas has over twenty-five years of experience in child welfare, with a specialization in adoptions and working with the Latino community. For twelve years, she supervised MSW students from various local universities. Olivas has a background as a program manager for a nonprofit resource family agency, as well as working as a permanency-planning mediator, where she mediated post-adoption contact agreements to honor connections for adoptees with their birth families. Olivas is passionate about child welfare both as a professional and an adoptive parent.