Lisa de Saxe Zerden, Ph.D., has been selected to receive the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) Distinguished Recent Contributions to Social Work Education Award for 2018. Zerden is senior associate dean for Master of Social Work education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Social Work.
“Dr. Zerden has contributed immensely to the vibrancy of our school and MSW program,” noted Dean Gary Bowen, who nominated Zerden for the award.
Bowen outlined some of Zerden’s key responsibilities in his nomination:
Manage day-to-day functions of the MSW program (300 graduate students and more than 50 faculty instructors)
Chair the SSW curriculum committee
Lead activities related to academic and professional accreditation reviews for SSW
Serve on the SSW personnel promotion and tenure committee, admission committee, and community management and policy practice concentration committee
Represent SSW across campus on UNC’s Title IX hearing committee, measurement and outcome committee, interprofessional education steering committee (which she co-leads), and health affairs associate dean committee
Mentor doctoral students
Bowen also noted that Zerden has taught almost every course in the MSW generalist curriculum, as well as specialized courses within the community management and policy practice concentration, and has developed several courses.
Her research initially focused on injection drug use and risk behaviors related to HIV/AIDS. More recently, she has expanded her focus to preventative components of behavioral health through integrated models of care and has received more than $3.6 million in research funding for projects over the past four years. She is recognized nationally as a research leader in social work within integrated health care.
Zerden came to SSW as an adjunct faculty member in 2010 and was named associate dean for academic affairs in 2015. In 2017, she was awarded the John A. Tate Early Career Scholar for Children in Need professorship.
She is a graduate of the University of California at Los Angeles (MSW, 2004) and the Boston University School of Social Work (Ph.D. in sociology and social work, 2009).
CSWE will present the award to Zerden formally at a ceremony later this year.