MEET LAURA

Laura Nissen

Former Dean and Professor Laura Burney Nissen is with the Portland State University School of Social Work. With a commitment to innovative and equity-centered systems change, Laura has worked with futures practice and lenses throughout her career. She is a Foresight Practitioner and a Research Fellow with the Institute for the Future. For the last three years she has served as the inaugural Presidential Futures Fellow at Portland State University and a founder of the PSU Futures Collaboratory. She has been PI on a two-year grant to convene first of its kind national Social Work Health Futures Lab from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. This lab provides infrastructure and inspiration to further develop applications of a futures lens for the social work profession with an emphasis on practice in health and health justice. Her commitment is to challenge social work and social workers to think beyond the traps of “short-termism” and participate in co-creating a more just and peaceful world. You can read more about her work at www.socialworkfutures.com. She lives in the Columbia River Gorge with her husband Don and mini-Aussie, Birdie.