Nancy Amidei, senior lecturer emeritus with the University of Washington School of Social Work, died peacefully at her home on April 8th after a long battle with blood cancer. Nancy was a pillar of the social work community, spending her life and career speaking up for poor and disenfranchised communities. Nancy joined the School of Social Work in 1992 and served as a faculty member for 16 years.
The University of Washington School of Social Work is excited to announce that Dr. Kirk “Jae” James, a clinical associate professor and director of the DSW program at the NYU Silver School of Social Work, is the keynote speaker for the 2025 SSW graduation. This year’s graduation celebration will be held on Thursday, June 12th, from 7p.m. – 9:30p.m. at the Alaska Airlines Arena at Hec Edmundson Pavilion.
The University of Washington School of Social Work is thrilled to announce that Hannah Scheuer, a graduating Ph.D. student, has accepted a position as a tenure track assistant professor at The Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College – City University of New York (CUNY). Scheuer graduates from UW in Spring 2025 and will begin her faculty position in January 2026.
After 12 years as the public policy director for Partners For Our Children (P4C), Laurie Lippold now serves as P4C’s senior policy advisor and continues to champion policies that keep families together. To celebrate Lippold’s contributions to P4C and policies affecting families across the state, we want to highlight Lippold’s journey and career at the School of Social Work.
Seattle hosted the annual Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR) conference for the first time, with the UW School of Social Work playing a significant role in welcoming peer institutions and contributing in large numbers to the research presentations. UW faculty, doctoral students, and staff researchers presented on various critical issues, including food insecurity, foster care policy advocacy, suicide risk among college students and more.
BHCore, a new School of Social Work research center, held its first behavioral health training for firefighters and emergency medical services staff on January 17. BHCore’s mission is to reimagine how firefighters, emergency medical providers and others deliver emergency and crisis behavioral health services and to transform how those dedicated responders are recruited, trained and supported.
Diana Pearce, senior lecturer emerita at the School of Social Work and founder of the Center for Women’s Welfare (CWW), is giving $250,000 to the School to support the Center’s work. Pearce hopes the additional funding will complete the Self-Sufficiency Standard’s expansion into all 50 states, and Washington D.C., with updated data by 2026.
Researchers from the Social Development Research Group, a School of Social Work research and innovation center, have found that adolescents living in rural Washington state generally understand what constitutes acceptable firearm carrying behavior. Study participants were typically engaging with firearms in prosocial ways like hunting, recreation and sport.
The University of Washington’s Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies awarded Tess Abrahamson-Richards, a fourth-year Ph.D. student at the UW School of Social Work, with the 2024 Best Graduate Paper in Labor Studies Prize. Since 1992, the Bridges Center has promoted quality scholarship on labor issues among UW students through an annual $500 cash prize to the authors of the best student papers written on a labor topic during the academic year.
In the 2024 autumn quarter, the University of Washington School of Social Work promoted three faculty members into new roles. Alice Ryan, David La Fazia and Karen Wollemborg, all previously lecturers at the school, have started new positions as assistant teaching professors. We are proud to support their outstanding scholarship and ongoing contributions to the School’s mission and community.