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Robert O. Motley Jr., PhD, MSW, is an Assistant Professor at the Boston College School of Social Work and the Founder and Director of the Racism-Based Violence Injury & Prevention (RB-VIP) Lab. His research examines how racism-based violence—particularly perceived racism-based police violence—shapes mental and behavioral health outcomes among emerging adults (ages 18–29) from marginalized ethnic communities, including Black, Hispanic, and African immigrant populations.

Dr. Motley’s program of research originated during his doctoral training at Washington University in St. Louis, where, as a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) T32 Pre-Doctoral Fellow, he developed and validated one of the first measurement frameworks designed to capture multiple pathways of exposure to racism-based police violence, including direct victimization, in-person witnessing, and exposure through media. His dissertation work addressed a critical gap in the field by advancing culturally grounded tools capable of quantifying how often and in what ways emerging adults encounter racially motivated police violence.

Since joining Boston College, Dr. Motley has expanded this foundational work into a nationally recognized research agenda. Through externally funded, mixed-methods studies, he has led efforts to refine and validate racism-based police violence exposure measures in national samples and to examine their associations with trauma-related symptoms, substance use, suicidal behavior, police contact anxiety, and help-seeking. His research is supported by funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The Joyce Foundation, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and Boston College, and has been published in leading journals including JAMA Psychiatry, Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, the Journal of Adolescent Health, and the Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research.

Through the RB-VIP Lab, Dr. Motley mentors undergraduate, master’s, doctoral, and postdoctoral trainees and collaborates closely with community organizations, advisory boards, and interdisciplinary scholars to ensure that research is grounded in lived experience and positioned to inform policy, prevention, and practice. His work reframes police violence as a structural and social justice issue and generates evidence to inform trauma-responsive social work interventions, equitable public safety practices, and community healing.

Dr. Motley received his PhD in Social Work from Washington University in St. Louis, his MSW from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and his BSW from Northeastern Illinois University. He is a Fellow of the Society for Social Work and Research.