School of Social Work

Denise Burnette, Ph.D., is the Samuel S. Wurtzel Professor of Social Work and director of the dean’s International Initiative. Her research focuses on global aging, with an emphasis on health inequities and psychosocial problems and related service needs of older adults in resource-constrained settings. She has held Fulbright fellowships in India, Botswana and Mongolia and served as an International Scholar with the Open Society in Central Asia and the Balkans for a decade.

Burnette has taught extensively across M.S.W. and Ph.D. curricula and in related disciplines. A core component and goal of her work in low resource settings is capacity-building with faculty and students in collaborating schools of social work and public health. Examples include dissertation supervision, classroom teaching, community lectures, seminars, training workshops, summer schools, and individual and departmental faculty development initiatives.

Burnette has held several academic administrative appointments, most recently as director of the VCU School of Social Work’s Ph.D. Program and immediate past President of the Group for the Advancement of Doctoral Education in Social Work (GADE). She has extensive direct social work practice experience in medical and public psychiatric settings. She holds a certification in Management Development for College and University Administrators from Harvard University and is Professor Emerita at Columbia University School of Social Work.

Areas of expertise

• Global Aging
• International Social Work
• Research Design: Qualitative and Quantitative

Education and credentials

M.S. Mental Health Policy & Services, Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley
M.S.S.W., University of Tennessee
B.A., University of Tennessee
B.S., University of Tennessee

View Denise Burnette's curriculum vitae.