Officers
President
Leila Patel
2025-2029
Leila Patel is Distinguished Professor of Social Development at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. She is the founding director of the Centre for Social Development in Africa where she is based. She played a leading role in the development of welfare policy in South Africa. She has published widely in social development, social welfare, social policy, social protection and social work focusing on gender and care, and on children, youth and families. Her recent book coedited with Sophie Plagerson and Isaac Chinyoka – Social Protection and Social Development in the Global South – was published by Edward Elgar in 2023. Leila has been a board member of the ICSD and was recently appointed to the board of the UN Research Institute for Social Development.
Vice President for Planning and Organization Evaluation
Chathapuram Ramanathan
2024-2028
Dr. Chathapuram Ramanathan, PhD, ACSW, LMSW, LMFT, CAC is Professor of Social Work at Illinois State University, Dr. Ramanathan brings more than four decades of experience as a practitioner, educator, and administrator. His work focuses on cross-cultural practice, social development, and corporate social responsibility. A licensed psychotherapist and marriage and family therapist, he currently serves as Vice President for Planning and Organizational Evaluation with the International Consortium for Social Development (ICSD). A Fulbright-Nehru Visiting Scholar at NIMHANS and Fulbright Senior Specialist at TISS, he has served on NASW’s national committees on ethics and diversity and on the CSWE Commission on Accreditation. Widely published, he has delivered keynote addresses and workshops in over 18 countries, co-authored four books, and received multiple national recognitions for his leadership and scholarship.
Vice President for Public
Relations and Communications
Fr. Saju M. D.
2024–2028
Fr. (Dr.) Saju M. D. is Principal and Professor of Social Work at Rajagiri College of Social Sciences in Kochi, India. A social work scholar and practitioner with over two decades of experience, his work spans mental health, disability inclusion, workplace well-being, and community-based psychosocial care. He has led numerous national and international research collaborations, including projects supported by the Indian Council of Social Science Research and the UK–India Education and Research Initiative. Fr. Saju serves as Vice President for Public Relations and Communications of the International Consortium for Social Development and holds honorary appointments with the University of Melbourne and the University of Edinburgh. His leadership combines academic rigor with a commitment to social innovation, ethical practice, and global collaboration in advancing social development.
Vice President for Special Projects
Lauren Graham
2024-2028
Lauren is a development sociologist deeply committed to social justice. Her academic work focuses on enhancing opportunities for people to realize their full potential. She studies how structural barriers contribute to marginalisation and identifies effective ways to empower individuals to lead lives they value. Her research primarily targets marginalised and excluded groups, including unemployed youth, people with disabilities, vulnerable workers, and children in difficult circumstances. While she is dedicated to advancing theoretical research, she also uses evidence to create innovative policy and programmatic solutions to improve social development outcomes for excluded groups. Her work is highly relevant to policymaking and aims to ensure that research benefits the societies it serves. She is a Professor at the University of Johannesburg and is the Director of the Centre for Social Development in Africa, a research centre focused on applied social development research.
Secretary General
Vacant
Vacant
Associate Secretary General for Regional Branches
Bipin Jojo
2024-2028
Dr. Bipin Jojo is Professor in the Centre for Social Justice and Governance, School of Social Work at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. He was a common wealth visiting fellow to School of Oriental and African Stuides, University of London during 2008-09. He was a visiting professor to University of Tampree, Finland in 2018 and also delivered lectures at University of Bilbao, Spain and Masaryk University, Czech Republic. He served as the chairperson of Centre for Social Justice and Governance between 2006-2012. He also served as the chairperson of International Relation Office at Tata Institute of Social Sciences between 2009-2012. Durinfg this period he was instrumental in establishing international academic collaboration with with consortium of European Universities under Erasmus Mundus project funded by the European Union led by Lund University, Sweden.He was the co-researcher in the collaborative research project with University of Edinburgh and University of East London in United Kingdom funded by the British Council. He also worked in a collaborative research project on communities’ informal care and welfare systems with Charles Sturt University, Australia.
Associate Secretary General for Membership
Vikash Kumar
(Interim)
Interim Appointment
Associate Secretary General for Communication
Marianna Colvin
2024-2028
Dr. Colvin, PhD, LGSW, is Associate Professor, Dean’s Fellow for Research & Academic Effectiveness, and Director of the Child Welfare Institute at the Florida Atlantic University College of Social Work & Criminal Justice. She holds an MSW from the University of Alabama and a PhD in Social Work from the University of Georgia, and brings to her teaching and scholarship a community-wide and systems-oriented view of child welfare, emphasizing multi-organizational collaboration, family experience, and policy-practice links. Her past practice roles span local, national and international child welfare work—ranging from community development in India to foster/adoptive home licensing and public child protective services in the U.S. Through her mixed-methods research, Dr. Colvin examines inter-organizational human service delivery systems, network dynamics, and social work education with a global-community lens.
Treasurer
Benjamin J. Lough
2021-2024
2024-2028
Ben Lough is a Professor of Social Work and Business Administration and Director of Social Innovation at the Gies College of Business, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He also holds positions as Senior Research Associate with the Center for Social Development, University of Johannesburg, and Faculty Director of International Service at the Center for Social Development, Washington University in St. Louis. He is a Senior Researcher for the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme. Ben’s research and teaching interests include volunteerism, community development, grassroots social innovation, and non-profit management. He was the lead researcher and author of the UN State of the Worlds Volunteerism Report and is currently researching the contributions of international volunteers to gender equality from the perspectives of partner organizations. Dr. Lough earned his Ph.D. in Social Work from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis in 2010.
Director of Information Technology
Vikash Kumar
2024-2028
Dr Kumar has a multidisciplinary background in Global Health and Social Work. He earned a doctoral degree in Global Health from Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh, which examine the delivery of mental health and non-communicable disease service at the public hospitals in India. He has taught social work courses in India and the UK and supervised many students for their field work practicum. Regarding social work practice, Dr Kumar has implemented various projects related to community health, emergency response, homelessness and livelihood for marginalised communities for the past 8 years. He has received numerous grants for his research projects and social enterprise. Dr Kumar’s research interests include health care for elderly, mental health services delivery, homelessness, education, health system strengthening. Dr Kumar is keen in working with students and colleagues to use technologies to develop models and interventions to tackle contemporary social problems at local and global level.
President, European Branch,
Gordana Berc
Gordana Berc was born in Zagreb, 1970. She graduated social work in 1999. at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Law, Department of Social work and has been employed at the same faculty in 2001. as a junior research assistant. In 2005 she finished master degree in education sciences at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Philosophy. In 2009. she defended doctoral theses in the field of social sciences at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Law. From 2010 she is employed as an assistant professor at the Faculty of Law and she teaches on the undergraduate and graduate program as well as on the postgraduate program. From 2001. until today she was involved in teaching different courses at the Department of Social Work (Social Work with Families, Preventive Programs in Social Work, Family Therapy, Basics of counseling, School social work). Today she teaches Basics of counseling, School of social work, Different approaches to Counseling, and two courses on the postgraduate program.
Chairperson, Asia-Pacific Branch
Asok Kumar Sarkar
Dr. Asok Kumar Sarkar, Chairperson of the International Consortium for Social Development Asia Pacific branch, is Professor of Social Work. Presently, he serves as Head, Department of Social Work, Visva-Bharati, India and also Principal, Institute of Rural Reconstruction, Visva-Bharati, Sriniketan, India. He is an alumnus of Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai and Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Formerly, he worked as Head, Department of Social Work, Assam University, Silchar, Assam. He has authored and edited books such as NGOs: The New Lexicon of Health Care (Concept), NGOs and Globalization: Developmental and Organizational Facets (Rawat), Human Development and Sustainability: Challenges and Strategies (Atlantic), and Welfare of Disadvantaged: Exploring Community Development Approach (Concept). He is the founding editor of Journal of Social Work and Social Development, a UGC-CARE listed journal (of India) and served from 2010 to 2017. His areas of research interests include maternal morbidity, reproductive health, health care, NGOs and social development.
Chairperson, Africa Branch
Lauren Graham
Dr. Graham, a development sociologist with a Doctorate in Sociology from the University of Johannesburg, is the Director of the Centre for Social Development in Africa at the University of Johannesburg and was elected to chair the newly launched ICSD Africa branch at the 22nd Biennial Conference of the consortium in July 2021. Previously, Lauren served as Deputy Director of the CSDA. Her research interests are in the application and testing of social and development theories in practice, with a focus on youth, children, and people with disabilities. She has strong expertise in evaluation research and is skilled in the use of both quantitative and qualitative research approaches. She is particularly interested in the use of research methods that give a voice to vulnerable groups. She is a National Research Foundation Y-rated scholar – a rating applied to emerging academics who show strong potential to achieve higher ratings in their careers.
Chair of Board of Managers, SDI Journal
Alice K. Butterfield
Dr. Alice K. Butterfield is a professor at the Jane Addams College of Social Work, University of Illinois Chicago. Her scholarship focuses on homelessness, social policy, international social work education, and community development. She is an author of Incorporating Engaged Research in Social Development: Exemplars and Guidelines for Social Work and Human Services (2021); Practicing as a Social Work Educator in International Collaboration (2017); Dynamics of Family Policy (2010); Social Development and Social Work: Learning from Africa (2013); Interdisciplinary Community Development (2007); and University-Community Partnerships (2005). She leads the Social Work Education in Ethiopia Partnership (Project SWEEP), resulting in the first-ever MSW and PhD degrees in Social Work and Social Development in Ethiopia. [http://www.aboutsweep.org]. Dr. Butterfield has served as a Fulbright Specialist with Assam Don Bosco University in Northeast India. She received the Distinguished Alumni Award from Washington University in St. Louis in 2007 and Dakota Wesleyan University in 2022. She can be reached at akj@uic.edu
Editor in Chief, SDI Journal
Philip Hong
2025-2028
Prof. Philip Hong is the Dean of the University of Georgia School of Social Work. Hong’s research has been supported by more than $4.6 million in funding
from foundations and federal agencies such as the US Department of Health and Human Services. The social work intervention model that he has developed, “Transforming Impossible into Possible (TIP)”, is a national model for social policies that promote self-sufficiency and family- strengthening. The TIP model is being applied and tested to support communities in the areas of employment and workforce development, health promotion, youth development and empowerment, returning citizen reentry, substance use recovery, and violence prevention. He is the author of more than 70 peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and other
publications as well as 100 refereed conference presentations. Hong has served on the editorial board of the Journal of Poverty and Public Policy and of the journals Social Work Research, and Families in Society. He also has been an external reviewer for the Office of Policy Support in the USDA Food and Nutrition Service.
Editor of the ICSD Newsletter
Vacant
Director of Information Technology
Vikash Kumar
2024-2028
Dr Kumar has a multidisciplinary background in Global Health and Social Work. He earned a doctoral degree in Global Health from Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh, which examine the delivery of mental health and non-communicable disease service at the public hospitals in India. He has taught social work courses in India and the UK and supervised many students for their field work practicum. Regarding social work practice, Dr Kumar has implemented various projects related to community health, emergency response, homelessness and livelihood for marginalised communities for the past 8 years. He has received numerous grants for his research projects and social enterprise. Dr Kumar’s research interests include health care for elderly, mental health services delivery, homelessness, education, health system strengthening. Dr Kumar is keen in working with students and colleagues to use technologies to develop models and interventions to tackle contemporary social problems at local and global level.
ICSD Members at Large
David Ansong
2024-2028
Dr. David Ansong is a Kuralt Distinguished Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Social Work. He also serves as a faculty director of the Global Asset Building program at the Center for Social Development. His research focuses on economic and finance-related intervention strategies and policies that improve child and youth well-being. He has conducted international research on how financial capability and asset-building (FCAB) interventions impact family well-being and development. He currently leads efforts to shape the agenda for an FCAB initiative in Africa. His work on quantitative methods has focused on geospatial modeling, psychometric testing, assessing unobserved population heterogeneity (e.g., latent class analysis, latent growth curves, and latent mixture modeling), and causal inference (e.g., instrumental variable estimation, propensity score matching, difference-in-difference, fixed effects, and structural equation modeling).
Joachim Vogt Isaksen
2024-2028
Dr. Joachim Vogt Isaksen is Associate Professor in the Department of Social Work at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Holding a PhD in Sociology, his research spans media sociology, migration and integration, child welfare, and the sociology of health and illness. He has published widely on topics such as attitudes toward immigration, welfare state regimes, and social inclusion, including comparative studies of Sweden and Norway.  He teaches courses in qualitative research methods and professional practice in local and global contexts, bringing critical perspectives on policy, media framing, and intergroup relations.
Justin Francis Leon V. Nicolas, RSW
Associate Professor of Social Work at the University of the Philippines Diliman, College of Social Work and Community Development, Dr Nicolas holds a PhD in Social Work from the University of Newcastle (Australia), along with an MSW and BS in Social Work from UP Diliman. His scholarship centres on creativity in social work—exploring how innovative arts-informed approaches, self-care, and reflective practice enrich social work education and practice. Key topics include homelessness in Metro Manila, social work and technology, child-labour, juvenile justice, disability, spirituality, and community reintegration of overseas Filipinos. He is widely published and has active international collaborations.
Rong Xiang
Dr. Rong Xiang, Associate Professor at Yunnan University, China, directs the Social Work Research Institute in the School of Ethnology and Sociology. She’s actively involved in NGO development, focusing on social services in China. Dr. Xiang serves on the National Community Governance Committee and as Vice President of Yunnan Federation of Social Workers. She founded several NGOs in Yunnan, including the Heart to Heart Community Care Organization and Foundation, working with migrant and hollowed-out rural communities. Dr. Xiang’s research focuses primarily on developmental social work and social inclusion, along with gender and development, and service learning. Since 2006, she has integrated service learning into her teaching and research, conducting workshops across South and Southeast Asia. Her publications in both English and Chinese have significantly influenced regional social work practices. She has received numerous awards, including national recognition for protecting women’s and children’s rights (2013), National Social Work Top Ten Contributor (2015), and All China Social Work Leader (2017).
George Palattiyil
2021-2025
Dr George Palattiyil is a Senior Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Edinburgh and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, UK. With teaching and research experience spanning across India, Scotland, Jordan, Uganda and Bangladesh, he is passionate about internationalising the curriculum and cross-cultural learning and in 2019, won the Best Personal Tutor Award from the Edinburgh University Student Association. He sits on the Board of Directors of Multi–Cultural Family Base, and the Institute for Research and Innovation in Social Services. He has served on the British Journal of Social Work editorial board and currently contributes to the Editorial Board of Practice – Social Work in Action and European Social Work Research Journal, as well as the International Committee of JUCSWEC. More info about Dr Palattiyil can be found here. ICSD is an excellent platform for a critical debate on the global challenges facing humanity and to inform future practice. I hope to contribute meaningfully to these debates and to raise ICSD’s profile globally.
Marissa Kaloga
2021-2025
Dr. Marissa Kaloga is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) at University of Otago in Aotearoa New Zealand where she teaches community and organizational development. Her community-based research focuses on inclusive entrepreneurship, and how to promote social and economic justice through coordinated systems change approaches. She has conducted mixed-methods applied research with diverse communities in Africa, Asia, North America, and Oceania. As Director of Innovation, she ran The Economic & Community Development Institute’s Business Innovation Centre and Women’s Business Centre. She was the 2018-2019 Fulbright Scholar to Guinea, leading research on connectivity in Conakry’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. My vision for the ICSD is an organization that serves as a catalyst for interdisciplinary knowledge sharing that fosters innovative ideas in support of social development.
Liljana Rihter
2021–2025
Dr. Liljana Rihter, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor, researcher and dean at the Faculty of Social Work, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. She is a teacher of methodology of research in social work. Her research work includes methods and models of evaluation of social protection programmes, vulnerable groups, dementia, working poor, needs assessment and poverty. She has been a member of various groups at the national level in the field of social protection. She has been a member of ICSD since 2004 and a board member of European Branch since 2009. She has participated in various ICSD symposia and European branch conferences. My vision for the ICSD is it should continue to be an inclusive community of diverse groups (experts, professionals, academics, students, other people) who are committed to a decent life for all and sustainable development around the world.