Carrie Lanza

Associate Teaching Professor
PhD, University of Washington

 / 
206-351-3182
  / Room 
111G

Prior to joining the UW School of Social Work faculty, Carrie taught for eight years at University of Washington, Bothell in the School of Nursing & Health Studies and the School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences where she developed a teaching praxis grounded in principles of critical pedagogy, embodiment, community engagement and multidisciplinarity. 

Carrie’s current teaching revolves around four poles: First, she  is passionate about teaching history and theory as means of working towards understanding the conditions that shape the contemporary profession of social work and the social welfare state. 

Second, she is committed to teaching through transnational and global lenses. To this end, she teaches an advanced course on Globalization and has developed and led two study abroad programs in Mexico and Spain. 

Third,  she is currently exploring how contemplative and somatic (embodied) practices can be employed in teaching social work with the goal of developing more tools for cultivating resilience in a highly stressful profession. 

Lastly, she is committed to building capacity for a robust, creative and engaging multimodal pedagogy, flowing seamlessly between the classroom and online contexts. 

Carrie’s teaching is also strongly informed by her practice background, which includes experience in psychosocial rehabilitation, maternal and infant mental health as well as a wide variety of community-engaged and administrative practice settings.

Her research explores the integration of media and the arts with social work in both historical and contemporary contexts, ranging from the documentary photography and arts practices of the social settlement house movement during the Progressive era to the infinite variety of emerging contemporary practices with a focus on music and dance.  She is a member of art and scholarship collective, Womxn Who Rock: Making Scenes, Building Communities (WWR).  Visit WWR’s most recent (virtual) project, which explores themes of collective grief and hope, entitled, Ofrendas for the Future