Fellows

Michael J. Austin, PhD

Inducted in 2015

Bio

Dr. Michael J. Austin is the Milton and Florence Krenz Mack Distinguished Professor of Nonprofit Management and director of the Mack Center on Nonprofit and Public Sector Management in the Human Services at the School of Social Welfare, University of California, Berkeley. He is the former dean of the University of Pennsylvania, School of Social Work, and teaches graduate students in the area of non-profit management, community planning and the social environment dimensions of human behavior and the social environment. His areas of research include the social psychology of organizational role taking, building organizational knowledge-sharing systems to support evidence-informed practice, and expanding the methodologies of practice research.

Since 1992, Dr. Austin has served as Staff Director of the Bay Area Social Services Consortium (BASSC), a collaborative composed of 11 county social service directors, 5 deans/directors of social work programs, and 2 foundation executives. Its primary activities include an applied research program, an executive development program, and a policy analysis/implementation program. The most recent BASSC research report relates to evidence for child welfare practice (Evidence for Child Welfare Practice, Routledge 2010). Since 2006, Dr. Austin has served as the Staff Director of the Bay Area Network of Nonprofit Human Service Agencies (BANNHSA), and recently published a Mack Center research report on pioneering nonprofit human service organizations (Organizational Histories of Nonprofit Human Service Organizations, Routledge, 2013). His work on management practice includes: Supervision as Collaboration in the Human Services: Building a Learning Culture. Sage Publications, 2004 (with K. Hopkins) and Managing the Challenges in Human Service Organizations: A Casebook, Sage Publications, 2009 (with R. Brody and T. Packard). His most recent publication is Social Justice and Social Work: Rediscovering a Core Value of the Profession (Sage, 2014). His publications reflect a long-standing interest in the management of non-profit and public sector organizations. Dr. Austin is the author or co-author of 20 books, over 100 articles and numerous reports. He serves as Editor of Human Service Organizations; Management, Leadership & Governance.

To access Dr. Austin’s Faculty Page, click here: UC Berkeley, School of Social Welfare.