Amelia Hartley (previously Amelia Williams) is a dual degree student in Purdue University’s Public Health Masters/PhD Program. During her time at Purdue, she has been active in pursuing social justice and equitable outcomes for survivors of abuse through research, coursework, and extracurriculars. She has been a part of Purdue’s Violence Intervention, Support, Technology, and Action (VISTA) Lab since 2021 where she has conducted research on topics surrounding child maltreatment, child welfare, and youth disclosure.
She is a published first author and has presented her work nationally at multiple conferences, including the American Public Health Association’s Annual Conference in 2022 and the Society for the Advancement of Violence and Injury Prevention Research’s Annual Conference in 2023.
Beyond her research, rigorous coursework in public health topics, including a semester-long, multidisciplinary project on youth with disabilities in the foster care system, has helped Amelia deepen her understanding of child welfare and the structural inequities that often contribute to cycles of child abuse and neglect. Beyond Purdue’s campus, Amelia completed an internship with Kaye Implementation and Evaluation during the summer of 2023 where she worked on a team to complete various projects facilitating the implementation and evaluation of child welfare solutions nationwide.
In her free time, she is a passionate advocate for the disability and rare disease communities, speaking to international audiences on related topics, advocating on Capitol Hill, volunteering at youth events, and playing competitive wheelchair basketball and tennis. With her extensive understanding of the public health landscape within which abuse/neglect occurs, on top of personal experience as a survivor and adoptee, Amelia hopes to pursue a career in public health studying child maltreatment prevention, identification, and intervention for children with disabilities.
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