Karen Bullock
Louise McMahon Ahearn Endowed Professor
Biography
Karen Bullock, PhD, LICSW, APHSW-C, FGSA, is the Louise McMahon Ahearn Endowed Professor in the Boston College School of Social Work and in Global Public Health . She is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Work (LICSW) with mental health practice experience and expertise in health disparities, health equity, serious illness care, aging and gerontology, hospice, palliative and end-of-life care decision making. She has served as Principal Investigator and/or Co-Investigator for over $65 million in federal grant funding focused on equity and inclusion for workforce development, aging, and health network sustainability. Professor Bullock is a John A. Hartford Faculty Scholar and has served on several national boards and committees, including the Social Work Hospice & Palliative Care Network (SWHPN) as vice-chair and the American Cancer Society (ACS) Oncology Social Work Research Peer Review Committee, past chair. She is a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) Roundtable on Quality Care for People with Serious Illness, a Steering Committee member for the Duke University REACH Equity Center, affiliate faculty at the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC), and she holds an appointment in the Department of Supportive Oncology at Dana Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI). Notably, she was the first social worker to be selected and served as a Visiting Professor in Palliative Care at the University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine, in 2019; and in 2024, Professor Bullock was the recipient of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM) Richard Payne Outstanding Achievement in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Award. In addition, she was elected a member of the Board of Directors for the Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR) and appointed co-chair of the SSWR Research Capacity Development Committee (RCDC).