Society for Social Work and Research

Please join us for food and conversation. This year’s doctoral student panel includes three individuals whose advocacy and research has had a direct impact on public policy. Congressman Edolphus Towns of the 10th district of New York will begin the panel by discussing his experience as a practicing social worker in the House of Representatives. Congressman Towns holds a Master of Social Work degree from Adelphi University and is Chair of the Congressional Social Work Caucus, a platform to more than 600,000 social workers throughout the United States. Congressman Towns has championed issues critical to quality of life such as improving the public healthcare system, strengthening public education, and developing initiatives to reduce chronic diseases. The second panelist, Dr. Michael Sherraden is director of the Brown School’s Center for Social Development (CSD) at Washington University in St Louis. Dr. Sherraden will speak about his innovations and research in asset building, influences on federal legislation and state legislation in the United States, and policy impacts in other countries. The final speaker, Dr. Randy Capps, is a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. Dr. Capps spearheaded the first research studies examining the economic and psychological impact of parental deportation on U.S. citizen children, which led to policy changes regarding the treatment of parents in the custody of immigration agents and helped build a case to stop immigration raids on worksites.