BUSSW Community Members Honored as NASW Social Work Pioneers
Three members of the Boston University School of Social Work (BUSSW) community – Louis Lowy, Karen Bullock, and Charles E. Lewis, Jr. – join a prestigious group of social work leaders as new members of to the National Association of Social Workers’ (NASW) Social Work Pioneers program.
The NASW Social Work Pioneers program honors members of the social work profession who have contributed to the evolution and enrichment of the profession, and whose unique dedication, commitment, and determination have improved social and human conditions. Since its launch in 1994, the Pioneer Program has inducted almost 900 leaders in the field.
Louis Lowy, PhD (1920-1991) was an internationally recognized gerontologist and social work educator who served on BUSSW’s faculty from 1947 to 1985. A Holocaust survivor, he contributed to the restoration of social work education in Germany and other Nazi-occupied countries. After leading community groups throughout his imprisonment during the war and his subsequent displacement, he emigrated to the United States where he earned his MSW at BUSSW. He is the forefather of the school’s specialization in aging and its Lowy-GEM Program and has received numerous honors from Boston University and at the regional, national, and international level.
Karen Bullock, PhD, LICSW (SSW’00) is the Louise McMahon Ahearn Endowed Professor in the Boston College School of Social Work and in Global Public Health. She has been a leading force in advancing social work education and training in health equity, aging and gerontology, hospice, palliative and end-of-life care decision-making since graduating from BUSSW’s PhD program more than two decades ago. A champion for the role of social work in palliative and hospice care, Bullock is the first and only social worker to receive the Richard Payne Outstanding Achievement in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Award by the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.
Charles E. Lewis, Jr., PhD, is the founder and director of the Congressional Research Institute for Social Work and Policy (CRISP), an adjunct professor at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, and a lecturer at Columbia University School of Social Work. He serves on the advisory board for the Center for Innovation in Social Work & Health (CISWH) at BUSSW.
Bullock, Lewis, Lowy and other newly elected “Pioneers” will be honored at the NASW Social Work Pioneers 18th Annual Celebration on October 19, 2024, in Washington, D.C.