Dr. Palmer’s interdisciplinary research focuses on gender-based violence prevention, help-seeking, legal / policy responses to gender-based violence, and measurement / methodological issues in research on sensitive topics from an anti-oppression, intersectional, and feminist lens. Her dissertation was on bystander intervention in sexual assault and intimate partner violence situations on a college campus.

She was a post-doctoral associate at the Center on Violence Against Women and Children (VAWC) at the Rutgers University School of Social Work, where she was responsible for analyzing data from an experimental evaluation of a campus-based bystander intervention and sexual violence prevention program.

From 2010 – 2013, she was a graduate research fellow at the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice, where she worked on a program of research on violence against American Indian and Alaska Native women living in tribal communities.

Her current projects include:

• Civil Legal Needs of Survivors of Sexual Assault (in collaboration with the Victim Rights Law Center)
• Community-Based Responses to Interpersonal Violence Project
• Biennial Survey of Sexual Violence, Dating Violence and Bystander Intervention among college students (since 2011)
• Program evaluations of American University’s sexual assault prevention and bystander intervention programs