Jacqueline De Puy

Jacqueline De Puy, PhD is a Swiss-American sociologist with degrees in sociology and development studies from University of Geneva and a PhD in social work and social policies from University of Fribourg, Switzerland. She started her career in an international NGO as an evaluation coordinator in Africa and South America for community development projects in health, education and agriculture. After that, she began a career-long series of diverse qualitative and quantitative research projects encompassing stigmatization of people living with HIV/AIDS; construction of vocational identity; interpersonal violence; and developing programs for violence prevention, as well as teaching and supervising student theses.

Dr. De Puy co-authored the first Swiss study on intimate partner violence against women (1997) and the Swiss study of the International Violence Against Women Survey (2005). In 2009 she co-authored with Sherry Hamby and Sylvie Monnier “Sortir ensemble et se respecter”, introducing the prevention of teen dating violence in Switzerland via a pioneering program that is an ongoing part of the curriculum in many schools in the French and German regions of the country. From 2012 to 2020 she served as a senior researcher in the Violence Medical Unit of the Lausanne University Hospital, where she conducted and published research on interpersonal violence, including male victims of IPV, children exposed to parental IPV, and community violence against the elderly. One of her main objectives has been conveying the experience of victims and the resources they used to recover from the consequences of trauma. She has also focused on understanding community and societal factors that contribute to and strengthen violence prevention. The findings of her studies have contributed to the shaping of domestic violence prevention policies in Switzerland over the past two decades. Dr. De Puy is continuing her work as a free-lance researcher.