Laura Burney Nissen (she/her) is a social work professor, leader, researcher and activist focused on innovation in public sector human service, equity work, human rights and social justice issues. She is particularly interested in how accelerations in climate change, artificial intelligence, technology, and economic disparities is already impacting and will continue to impact vulnerable populations, and how urgently contemporary human services systems need to evolve to meet the challenges of a complex and uncertain future. She's also been engaged and focused on the future of higher education - particularly in the public sector.

After being named Portland State University's first "Presidential Futures Fellow" by Interim PSU President Stephen Percy, Nissen founded the PSU Futures Collaboratory in 2019. The mission was to grow interdisciplinary “campus-wide foresightfulness” to advance and protect future-ready public higher education for an increasingly diverse student body. She has served as a faculty member for 20 years, the last 6 of which she has served as Dean and Professor of the School of Social Work.

Her focus is on building collaborative intelligence, imagination and agility for a complex era - and preparing systems and the people who rely on and work with them to meet the challenges of the times ahead.

She is also a Research Fellow with the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, CA. Nissen has an undergraduate degree from Metropolitan State University in Denver, and both a MSW, and Ph.D. from University of Denver. She currently lives in Washougal, Washington, with her husband Don.

-> Organizational development for future readiness, future of well-being and equity, futures graduate certificate, futures senior capstone course

Contact Laura -> Email -> Twitter -> LinkedIn

Visit Laura's Social Work Futures blog and website

Visit Laura's Social Work Health Futures Lab website (a national project of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation)