Dr. Yolanda Padilla
Dr. Yolanda Padilla

Dr. Yolanda Padilla is the leader of the new CSWE Center for Diversity and Social and Economic Justice. This center will provide social work education with the opportunity and the means to support greater diversity and social and economic justice in education, teaching, research, curriculum, institutional arrangements, and leadership development.

“It was a real honor for me to appoint Dr. Padilla as the inaugural director of this very important center for our field,” said School of Social Work dean Luis H. Zayas.  “She brings passion for the issue of diversity and social and economic justice, and will be in the enviable position of setting the course and the priorities as well as the functioning of this center.”

Padilla brings extensive background in the areas of racial and ethnic disparities in health and broader life chances, including critical analyses of social and economic justice and diversity issues in social work education. She has served as principal investigator in research funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, and the Social Science Research Council. Her teaching has focused on organizational, policy, and community practice as well as undergraduate interdisciplinary education on social and economic justice for non-social work undergraduate students.