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Department
Human and Organizational Development
Office Location
1202 18th Ave. So.
Mailing Address
Peabody #90
230 Appleton Place
Nashville, TN 37202
Direct Phone
615-322-6881
Fax Number
615-322-1141
Email Address
Beth Shinn
Professor of Human and Organizational Development
Ph.D., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Joined faculty in 2008
Research Interests
Marybeth (Beth) Shinn studies how social settings influence individual well-being, and how settings can be modified to foster individual welfare. Because understanding and changing the characteristics of settings requires measuring them, she is also interested in techniques for ecological assessment.
Much of Shinn's work focuses on individuals who face social exclusion due to poverty, homelessness, and/or mental illness. Current projects include a national experimental study comparing the success of different strategies to house homeless families, examination of targeting of homelessness prevention services in New York, and a study of characteristics of settings, including one in Portugal, that foster capabilities for individuals with mental illness. In the past, she has done both surveys and intervention studies to end homelessness for families and individuals and written about homelessness policy and prevention. Three recent projects involved a survey of older adults in poverty to understand why some become homeless, an evaluation the coverage of street counts, and a field experiment to determine whether rapid re-housing with transitional services fostered positive outcomes for children who were homeless with their families.
Shinn is interested in using research to influence public policy. She has done collaborative studies with New York City's Department of Homeless Services, Human Resources Administration, and Department of Health. She has participated in State Policy Academies run by the Federal Interagency Council on Homelessness and served on research advisory panels for the New York City Department of Homeless Services and the National Low Income Housing Coalition, among others.