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Before taking her position at UNE, Cyndi Amato, M.S.W. worked in the field of sexual assault response and prevention for 20 years. She held the positions of Executive Director of the Maine Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Executive Director of Sexual Assault Response Services of Southern Maine (SARSSM) overseeing a 24-hour crisis and support line, education programs, support groups and legal and medical advocacy. Accomplishments in these roles included the development of Sexual Assault Response Team services requiring collaboration with all law enforcement agencies (local, county, state and federal), hospitals, and district attorneys' offices.  Amato also created outreach and prevention programming for homeless youth and adults that resulted in the development of a human trafficking task force.  She has served on many boards, community tasks forces, and advisory groups furthering the development of prevention and intervention services. Amato has expertise in macro social work practice including community organizing, all aspects of non-profit management, and program development. She brings a trauma and resiliency informed teaching perspective to the classroom, engages with students in interprofessional learning, and employs experiential teaching methods as a way to prepare students for social work practice.  Personal interests include yoga, fitness, gardening, painting, the Boston Red Sox and spending time with family and her family of pets.