Faculty Bios

Richard J. Estes

Professor of Social Work

Richard J. Estes is Professor of Social Work at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He holds an A.B. degree from La Salle University in Philadelphia and graduate degrees in social work from the University of Pennsylvania (Master of Social Work) and the University of California at Berkeley (Doctor of Social Welfare). He also holds a post-master's Certificate in Psychiatric Social Work from the Menninger Foundation in Topeka, Kansas.

Dr. Estes' international activities have been extensive. Among other assignments, he has held visiting Professorships in Iran, Norway, the People's Republic of China, Morocco, Korea, Hawaii, Japan, Mongolia, the Russian Federation, Belgium, and elsewhere. Dr. Estes currently is a special consultant in social development to the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (Bangkok). In the United States, Dr. Estes is founding President of the Philadelphia Area Chapter of the Society for International Development (SID). He is a former president of the Group for the Advancement of Doctoral Education (GADE), and is a current member of the International Commission of the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE). At Penn, Dr. Estes is Chair of the graduate concentration in Social and Economic Development (SED) as well as the university's Luce and Student Fulbright Selection committees.

Dr. Estes has been the recipient of many awards and grants for his research on international social work and comparative social development including two Fulbright-Hays Senior Research Awards (Iran, 1978 and Norway, 1979) and a Distinguished Fulbright Scholar Award to Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea (1994). In 1992, he was elected "Social Worker of the Year" by the Pennsylvania Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers for his international activities. In 1996 he received the Alumni Recognition Award from the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work. In 1997 he was awarded the prestigious "Distinguished Recent Contribution to Social Work Education Award" by the Council on Social Work Education, the International Rhoda G. Sarnat Prize of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) and the "Best Article in Social Indicators Research Award of the International Society of Quality of Life Studies. In 2002 he was appointed Distinguished Visiting Scholar of United College of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Richard Estes
3701 Locust Walk
School of Social Work
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104- 6214

Tel: (215) 898-5531
E-mail: restes@caster.ssw.upenn.edu