Mansoo Yu, a professor of social work and public health, has been named the new Ph.D. program director for the School of Social Work.

Yu, who served in the same position from 2014 to 2018 and helped design the University of Missouri’s dual-degree program in social work and public health as well as the combined MSW and Ph.D. program, will succeed Ginny Ramseyer Winter in leading the doctoral program in social work.

“I am excited about the opportunity to contribute to the continued growth of the Ph.D. program,” Yu said. “I am committed to nurturing an academic environment of research and education, where students can make meaningful contributions to the social work profession. I look forward to building upon our successes and elevating the program’s impact even further.”

Yu has received numerous college- and department-level teaching awards and was recently selected as the 2024-26 Global Fellow at Ewha Women’s University in Seoul, South Korea. He is also an associate editor of the Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research, one of the top research journals in the field of social work.

Yu has authored more than 80 peer-reviewed publications and is working on several projects with funding from the Spencer Foundation as well as a CDC grant through MU Extension aimed at addressing health risks related to obesity in Missouri.

Aaron Thompson, director of the School of Social Work, described Yu as a “resolute and determined academic” whose scholarly productivity far exceeds that of most scholars in social work.

“Mansoo is often one of the first to show up five days a week to the office and often the last to leave,” Thompson said. “I look forward to his representation for Ph.D. students — whom Mansoo gives his time to without question — as well as his contribution to the School of Social Work Leadership Council as a program director.”

Thompson thanked Ramseyer Winter for her contributions to the Ph.D. program, praising her efforts to create opportunities for students to socialize and create culture and meaning within their ranks while still ensuring a rigorous academic experience.

“Ginny’s continued efforts to enhance our recruitment of excellent applicants has certainly shown given the quality of the students we have in the program today who are publishing at greater rates, writing pre-doctoral grants to federal institutes, and landing post-graduate professorships at excellent institutions of higher education,” he said.