Biography

Dr. Athena Motal has had a rich and rewarding social work career in health and human services within New York City’s public and private hospital systems. She has held social work leadership appointments in major hospitals, serving vulnerable populations experiencing acute, and chronic medical and mental health conditions.

Dr. Motal earned her MSW from New York University. She completed post-graduate training from the Ackerman Institute for the family and earned her PhD in Social Welfare from Yeshiva University Wurzweiler School of Social Work. For her dissertation, Dr. Motal conducted an ethics informed qualitative multiple case study examining the perspectives of medical social workers in how they identified and resolved ethical dilemmas in the hospital setting. Her research and findings were presented at the New York Academy of Medicine and nationally for Social Work Hospice and Palliative Care Network (SWHPN). 

Throughout her teaching career, Dr. Motal has taught various classes in the profession of social work, including Foundations of Social Work Practice I and II, Social Work in Health Care, Human Behavior in the Social Environment I and II, Trauma and Interpersonal Violence, Evidence-Based Mental Health Practice, Values and Ethics for Social Work Practice and Service Delivery. Dr. Motal has also been invited to participate in Touro University's Interprofessional Professional Education (IPE) and co-curricular activities with other professions including Touro University of Pharmacy,  Clinical Mental Health Counseling, Occupational Therapy, School of Education and the Law Center. 

Dr. Motal was invited to join the Touro community in 2016 as an adjunct professor teaching Social Work Foundations I/II and Integrative Seminar for Advanced Standing Students. In 2017, she was appointed as the Director of Social Work Recruitment, Outreach and Enrollment at Touro University GSSW.