Desmond Upton Patton, PhD, MSW
University of Pennsylvania

Desmond Upton Patton, a pioneer in the interdisciplinary fusion of social work, communications, and data science, is the Brian and Randi Schwartz University Professor, with joint appointments in the School of Social Policy & Practice and the Annenberg School for Communication along with a secondary appointment in the department of psychiatry in the Perelman School of Medicine.

Professor Patton’s groundbreaking research into the relationship between social media and gang violence – specifically how communities constructed online can influence often harmful behavior offline – has led to his becoming the most cited and recognized scholar in this increasingly important area of social science. His early work attempting to detect trauma and preempt violence on social media led to his current roles as an expert on language analysis and bias in AI and a member of Twitter’s Academic Research advisory board and Spotify’s Safety Advisory Council. As a social worker, Patton realized existing gold standard data science techniques could not accurately understand key cultural nuances in language amongst predominantly black and Hispanic youth. In response, he created the Contextual Analysis of Social Media (CASM) approach to center and privilege culture, context and inclusion in machine learning and computer vision analysis. CASM can be applied by businesses and other organizations to observe social media and workplace communication channels for potentially incendiary language, which taken out of context can lead to violence. With this methodology, organizations can better foster diverse and inclusive environments and minimize employee conflict. Further, Patton’s insights on creating non-biased and culturally nuanced algorithms give tech companies a holistic perspective on various business and social issues. The companies that adopt these proactive measures are then able to ensure they are not unintentionally propagating bias.

In 2018, Professor Patton published a groundbreaking finding in the prestigious Nature journal, Digital Medicine, which uncovered grief as a pathway to aggressive communication on Twitter. The report was cited in an amici curiae brief submitted to the United States Supreme Court in Elonis v. United States, which examined the interpretation of threats on social media. Widely referenced across disciplines, Patton’s research at the intersections of social media, AI, empathy and race has been mentioned in the New York Times, Nature, Washington Post, NPR, Vice News, ABC News, and other prestigious media outlets.

Professor Patton was a Member of the Board of Directors at the Columbia Center for Technology Management and was appointed Faculty Associate at Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. He won the 2018 Deborah K. Padgett Early Career Achievement Award from the Society for Social Work Research (SSWR) for his work on social media, AI, and well-being. He was named a 2017-2018 fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society and is a 2019 Presidential Leadership Scholar and Technology and a 2019 Human Rights Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights at Harvard Kennedy School. Patton is currently a member of the Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility at AAAS, a member of the Scientific Board for Children and Screens Institute of Digital Media and Child Development, and a member of the National Academy of Medicine.

Before joining Penn, Patton was Professor of Social Work and Sociology at Columbia University, Senior Associate Dean at Columbia School of Social Work and Associate Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the Data Science Institute at Columbia.

This session is sponsored by Platinum Sponsor University of Pennsylvania, School of Social Policy & Practice.

SOCIETY FOR SOCIAL WORK AND RESEARCH AND BROWN SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS 2025 ARON ROSEN LECTURE
Friday, January 17, 2025, 11:30 am-12:30 pm, Pacific

• Keynote Speaker: Leopoldo J. Cabassa, PhD, Professor, Brown School, Washington University in St. Louis

Leopoldo J. Cabassa, PhD, MSW
Washington University in St. Louis

Leopoldo J. Cabassa, MSW, Ph.D. is a Puerto Rican social worker. He is the Co-Director of the Center for Mental Health Services Research at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. His research centers on examining physical and mental health inequities in historically marginalized racial and ethnic populations with serious mental illness (SMI; e.g., schizophrenia, major depression, bipolar disorder). His work blends quantitative and qualitative methods, health disparities research, community engagement, intervention research, and implementation science. His research has been supported by the National Institute of Mental Health, the New York State Office of Mental Health, the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, SAMHSA, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Dr. Cabassa is a fellow of the Society for Social Work and Research and the American Academy of Social Work & Social Welfare. His scholarship is making significant contributions in three areas: improving depression literacy and reducing stigma toward mental illness in the Latino community; 2) reducing physical health inequities in racial/ethnic minoritized and historically marginalized communities with SMI; and 3) improving the health and well-being of young adults experiencing first-episode psychosis. See profile

This session is jointly sponsored by the Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR) and the Brown School of Social Work, Washington University in St. Louis.

ANNUAL SOCIAL POLICY FORUM
Saturday, January 18, 2025, 11:30 am-12:30 pm, Pacific

• • Chair: David Pate, Jr., PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison, social policy committee chair
  • Keynote Speaker: David Sanders, PhD, Executive Vice  President of Systems Improvement, Casey Family Programs

David Sanders, PhD
Casey Family Programs

David Sanders joined Casey Family Programs in July 2006. He oversees the foundation’s work with child welfare systems to improve practice, with an emphasis on ensuring safe and permanent families for children. He also oversees the foundation’s public policy and research work. In addition, President Obama appointed him chair of the federal Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities. Prior to joining Casey Family Programs, he directed all operations for the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services. See profile

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This session is sponsored by Platinum Sponsor University of Georgia, School of Social Work.

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PRESIDENTIAL PLENARY
Saturday, January 18, 2025, 2:00 pm-3:00 pm, Pacific

• Chair and Moderator: Ramona Denby-Brinson, PhD, MSW, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Keynote Speaker: Isabel Wilkerson

Isabel Wilkerson

Isabel Wilkerson, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Humanities Medal, is a leading light in this time of uncertainty and is the author of the critically acclaimed New York Times bestsellers The Warmth of Other Suns, and Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.

“Wilkerson’s work,” in the words of The American Prospect, “is the missing puzzle piece of our country’s history.”

The Warmth of Other Suns won the National Book Critics Circle Award and was named to more than 30 Best of the Year lists, including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post. In 2024, The New York Times named it one of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century, ranking it the No. 1 Nonfiction Book — and No. 2 among all books published this century.

Her latest book, Caste, became a No. 1 New York Times bestseller and was named Nonfiction Book of the Year by Time Magazine. Oprah Winfrey, in choosing it for her book club in the summer of 2020, declared it the most important book she had ever selected.

Wilkerson won the Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for her deeply humane narrative writing while serving as Chicago Bureau Chief of The New York Times, making her the first black woman in the history of American journalism to win a Pulitzer Prize and the first African American to win for individual reporting. In 2016, President Barack Obama awarded Wilkerson the National Humanities Medal for “championing the stories of an unsung history.”

As the historian Jill Lepore observed in The New Yorker: “What Wilkerson urges, isn’t argument at all; it’s compassion. Hush, and listen.”

See Website

This session is sponsored by Platinum Sponsor University of Washington, School of Social Work.