Tasha Perdue

Tasha Perdue’s research contextualizes drug use and elucidates ways that inequities in criminal justice responses to drug crises perpetuate trajectories of risk and drug use, demonstrating the essential relationship of public health and criminal justice policy. 

As a macro-level social worker, she is committed to striving for social change through research and policy practice. Her current research is focused on the opioid crisis.

She also is an affiliated faculty member with the Moritz College of Law’s Drug Enforcement and Policy Center, where she will support drug policy and criminal justice reform efforts on the local and state level.

Perdue’s academic work is informed by her professional experiences in the field. She has worked as a case manager in a community mental health center and a regional epidemiologist for the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services. She also volunteered with and researched in a harm reduction center in Skid Row, Los Angeles. Due to her work with community groups in Toledo and the University of Toledo on human trafficking, she received a Special Recognition from the Ohio House of Representatives, 45th District, and the Lucas County Commissioners. 

Perdue earned her PhD from the Suzanne-Dworak Peck School of Social Work at the University of Southern California as well as a Graduate Certificate in Public Policy from USC’s Price School of Public Policy. She was one of six students honored with the 2021 USC PhD Achievement Award for her federally funded research on the illicit drug market in Dayton, Ohio. She received her Master of Social Work from the University of MIchigan and her BS in criminal justice, with a minor in sociology, from Bowling Green State University.