Annie Zean Dunbar (Zean, she/her), PhD, MSW, is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.  She received her Doctorate in Social Work from the University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work. Zean has a B.A. in Psychology and an AM from the University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy and Practice with a program of study in Global Social Work. Zean is a social worker, educator, teaching-artist,  and community-engaged scholar who has worked within as a research consultant and program facilitator in university settings and multiple private companies. As an educator, Zean has taught from kindergarten to higher education, and come with a breadth and depth of teaching experience in social work education. She has co-created two courses on social work practice, and critical social work pedagogy. Zean enjoys teaching across micro to macro social work, organizational  theory and change, and leadership courses.

Zean has conducted mixed-methods research on education, healthcare administration, refugee resettlement within the fields of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Forced Migration Studies. Previously, Zean supported the Our Stories, Our Medicine Project, a NIH funded research project to create an Indigenous Health digital archive as a research assistant and program coordinator. She was also a co-Investigator with the Mutual Aid Research Group at the University of Denver, where she supported the creation of the Mutual Aid Fellowship, a yearlong seminar and practicum focused on the radical traditions of mutuality within the social work field. Her current research agenda includes innovative approaches by social service providers with migration experiences, in providing welcoming support to newcomer refugees and immigrants in the United States. Zean’s long-term research and artistic practice foreground Black feminist traditions and epistemes to examine the interstitial experiences of displaced peoples in the United States. Her  research interests include racialization and identity, organizational theory, mutual aid and community care, and long-term newcomer belonging in the US. Zean’s creative writing centers conceptions of truth and omission, liminality, temporality, memory, and the effusive nature of healing. Zean is pleased to be a part of the UCCS learning community, and is eager to develop meaningful social work praxis with students in their Practicum.

• Organizational Theory
• Leadership Frameworks
• Community and Organizational Change
• Refugee and Immigrant Social Work
• Critical and Feminist theory
• Power, Privilege, and Oppression
• Social Policy
• Radical Praxis in Social Work.

Annie Zean Dunbar CV