Ahearn Professor Karen Bullock named Social Work Pioneer

Karen Bullock, the Louise McMahon Ahearn Endowed Professor in the Boston College School of Social Work and in Global Public Health and an acclaimed researcher in health-related equity and inclusion issues, has been named a Social Work Pioneer by the National Association of Social Workers Foundation.

A member of the BCSSW faculty since 2022, Bullock combines considerable mental health experience and expertise in health disparities, health equity, serious illness care, aging and gerontology, hospice, palliative, and end-of-life care decision making. She champions a meaningful role for social work in the area of hospice and palliative care—now known as serious illness care—because of the specialized skill set and expertise it intersects with those of physicians, nurses, and allied health clinicians on primary care teams.

The Social Work Pioneers program is administered by the NASW Foundation, a 501c3 organization that supports the educational, research, and charitable initiatives of NASW, a 120,000-member professional organization of social workers in the United States. Pioneers are nominated for review by a steering committee that meets annually to make selections, and each new cohort is feted at the NASW Social Work Pioneers Event; this year’s celebration is October 19 in Washington, D.C.

“NASW Pioneers are social workers who have explored new territories and built outposts for human services on many frontiers,” reads the foundation’s description of the honor. “[Each] one has made an important contribution to the social work profession, and to social policies through service, teaching, writing, research, program development, administration, or legislation. NASW Pioneers have paved the way for thousands of other social workers to contribute to the betterment of the human condition; and they are role models for future generations of social workers.”

Bullock has been a principal investigator and/or co-investigator for more than $5 million in federal grant funding focused on equity and inclusion for workforce development, aging, and health network sustainability. She is a John A. Hartford Faculty Scholar and has an appointment in the Department of Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She served on several national boards and committees, including the Social Work Hospice & Palliative Care Network as vice chair and the American Cancer Society Oncology Social Work Research Peer Review Committee.

Earlier this year, Bullock was selected for the Richard Payne Outstanding Achievement in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Award by the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, the professional organization for physicians specializing in hospice and palliative medicine, nurses, and other health care providers.

Bullock said being designated a Social Work Pioneer is more than a professional honor.

“My passion for the social work profession grew out of my own lived experiences of being born and raised in a family with very limited resources. We collectively supported one another in our community and beyond. For me, social work has been a conduit for leading by example; the NASW Code of Ethics is an extension of my core values of human dignity and self-worth, justice, integrity, and competence.

“Humbly, I have embraced these professional values and my reward is the honor of being named a Social Work Pioneer. NASW has been a constant source of advocacy, political action, and empowerment for me to do this work; and has been the catalyst for the impact I have been fortunate to achieve as a social worker over the past 30-plus years.”