MEMORANDUM
DATE: December 16, 2025
TO: USC Faculty, Staff and Students
FROM: Steven D. Shapiro, MD, Senior Vice President for Health Affairs
RE: Dean of the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work
On behalf of Interim President Beong-Soo Kim, I am delighted to announce that Laura S. Abrams, MSW, PhD, a professor in the Department of Social Welfare, Luskin School of Public Affairs at UCLA, has agreed to serve as the next dean of USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, effective July 1, 2026. Abrams will also be appointed as the David Lawrence Stein/Violet Goldberg Sachs Professor in Mental Health.
In her scholarly pursuits, Abrams has sought to document and improve the well-being of incarcerated youth and young adults and their re-entry into the greater community. Her work examining the effects of incarceration of very young offenders led to a state bill in California barring juvenile justice jurisdiction for youth under age 12; a model that is spreading nationally. Her recent work on specialized populations, including commercially and sexually exploited minors and youth with life sentences, has also contributed to state and local policy reforms that emphasize alternatives to incarceration. Further, she is conducting the first national study on the juvenile life without parole population in the United States.
Abrams has authored five books and two monographs focusing on incarcerated youth, pathways to civic engagement and racial justice. She has received numerous awards for her scholarship, including the Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR) best scholarly book award (2020) for her 2017 book Everyday Desistance: The Transition to Adulthood Among Formerly Incarcerated Youth. She was also awarded the Frank R. Bruel prize for the best published article in Social Service Review, “Juvenile Justice at a Crossroads: Science, Evidence, and Twenty-First Century Reform” (2013). In addition, she and her colleagues and trainees have authored over a hundred peer reviewed publications.
Her strength in mentorship and education are underscored by her appointment to the inaugural Faculty Mentoring Honor Society at UCLA (2022), and, most recently, the California Social Welfare Archives Frances Lomas Feldman Award for Excellence in Social Work Education (2025). She is an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare (2020) and a Fellow of the Society for Social Work and Research (2016).
Abrams received her BA in the History of Ideas at Brandeis University, and an MSW and PhD in Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley. She started her academic career at the University of Minnesota and was recruited to UCLA as an assistant professor in the Department of Social Welfare in the Luskin School of Public Affairs at UCLA in 2005, rising to full professor in 2015. She served as the director/chair of the Social Welfare Department between 2017 and 2024.
Abrams, who was raised in Los Angeles, is a long-time resident of Culver City alongside her husband and two sons.
I would like to thank Vassilios Papadopoulos, the dean of the USC Alfred E. Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, for serving as interim dean for the last few years as he helped reorganize and restructure the school so we could then launch a successful search. We appreciate the tremendous talents and visionary leadership he provided during this critical time that have been invaluable to our students, faculty and the broader community.
I would also like to thank the chair of the committee, Ricky Bluthenthal, Distinguished Professor and Chair of Population and Public Health Sciences, Flora L Thornton Chair in Preventive Medicine, Keck School of Medicine of USC and members of the search committee (listed below) for their enthusiastic efforts in reviewing and interviewing a large number of highly qualified candidates from across the country, and the faculty and staff of the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work for their engagement and invaluable feedback.
Please join me in welcoming Dr. Abrams to her new role!
Search Committee for the Dean of the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work
Chair: Ricky Bluthenthal, PhD., Distinguished Professor and Chair of Population and Public Health Sciences, Flora L. Thornton Chair in Preventive Medicine, Keck School of Medicine of USC
Members:
- Jessica Borja, Associate Director, Office of Recruitment and Workforce Development, USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work
- Devon Brooks, MSW, PhD, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Associate Professor of Social Work, USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work
- Steve Chen, PharmD, Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs, William A., and Josephine A. Heeres Chair in Community Pharmacy, USC Alfred E. Mann School of Pharmacy
- Sean Curran, PhD, Vice Dean, Associate Dean of Faculty and Research; James E. Birren Chair in Gerontology, Professor of Gerontology, Leonard Davis School of Gerontology
- Judy Garner, PhD, Associate Senior Vice President for Health Schools Academic and Faculty Affairs, Office of the SVP for Health Affairs
- Rima Jubran, MD, Professor of Clinical Pediatrics, President of the Academic Senate, Keck School of Medicine of USC
- Janice Kamenir-Reznik, JD, MSW, Member, Board of Counselors, USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work
- Michele Kipke, PhD, Associate Senior Vice President for Strategic Health Initiatives, Co-Director Southern California Clinical and Translational Science Institute, Professor of Pediatrics, Office of the SVP for Health Affairs
- Michalle Mor-Barack, MSW, PhD, Dean’s Professor of Social Work and Business, USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work
- Manuel Pastor, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Sociology and American Studies & Ethnicity and Turpanjian Chair in Civil Society and Social Change, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences
- Jehni Robinson, MD, Associate Dean for Primary Care, Chair and Professor of Clinical Family Medicine, Keck School of Medicine of USC
- Shawn Sheffield, MBA, MHSA, Chief Strategy and Business Development Officer (KMC), Keck Medicine of USC
- Paloma Usquiano, Student Representative, USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work