American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare

Elizabeth Lightfoot, PhD

Active | Inducted in 2020

Current Position

Board Member, Chair, Early Career Mentoring Program

Bio

Elizabeth Lightfoot is Director and Distinguished Professor of Social Policy at the Arizona State University School of Social Work. Lightfoot’s research centers on disability policy and services, with a focus on the intersections of disability with child welfare, aging, disparities, and abuse. She has completed numerous projects investigating the interactions of people with disabilities in the child welfare system and her research findings have been used as evidence in the creation of national policies involving disability. She also has been involved in several ongoing community based participatory research partnerships related to the development of strengths or asset-based interventions targeting immigrant and refugee health, particularly for those from East Africa.

Before coming to ASU, she was the Distinguished Global Professor at the University of Minnesota School of Social Work for 23 years. At Minnesota she directed the PhD Program for 15 years, developed new MSW tracks in community practice, international social work, and health, disability and aging, and established an MSW field placement in Namibia. She also has been a Fulbright Scholar for sabbatical years in both Namibia and Romania and is the first Social Work Fulbright Faculty Ambassador through the Fulbright Program and the Institute for International Education.

She has served as the President of the Group for the Advancement of Doctoral Education in Social Work and has been on the boards of the Society for Social Work and Research, the Council of Social Work Education, and the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare. She has received the Group for the Advancement of Doctoral Education’s Educational Leadership award and has received university and college wide awards for international engagement, educational leadership, and teaching.

She enjoys teaching doctoral classes in research methods and policy and MSW courses in disability, policy and macro practice, she has advised more than two dozen PhD students, and she has mentored students and faculty around the world.

For more information visit- https://search.asu.edu/profile/3962276