Dr. Byrne Promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure
Boston University School of Social Work is pleased to announce that faculty member Thomas Byrne, PhD, has been promoted to the rank of associate professor with tenure. “I am very humbled to have been promoted to associate professor and to know that the work I do is valued by both BUSSW and the broader university community,” says Dr. Byrne. “At the same time, I recognize that much of the credit for my promotion is due to my many wonderful colleagues at BUSSW who have helped me in innumerable ways large and small during my time thus far on the faculty, as well as to my students who have constantly inspired and pushed me to be a better teacher and researcher.”
As part of BUSSW’s Social Welfare Policy department, Dr. Byrne teaches courses on the conception, scope, and history of social welfare, as well as contemporary social policy analysis. His research influencing social policy today focuses on homelessness, housing, and veterans. Dr. Byrne’s most recent report, “A Rising Tide Drowns Unstable Boats: How Inequality Creates Homelessness,” explores the connection between growing income inequality and homelessness on the local level.
In addition to his research at BUSSW, Dr. Byrne contributes to the community by serving on multiple boards and organizations seeking to end homelessness. Currently, he serves on the board of directors at Hearth, Inc., a Boston-based organization dedicated to eliminating homelessness among the elderly through prevention, placement, and housing programs. More specifically, much of Byrne’s work addresses the high risk of homelessness among veterans and seeks to decrease the number of people who are homeless directly through social policy changes. He currently serves as an investigator for the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs Center for Healthcare Outcomes and Implementation Research (CHOIR), which works to “advance coordinated, patient-centered healthcare for all Veterans through research and quality improvement.” Byrne is also an investigator at the National Center on Homelessness Among Veterans, which “promotes recovery-oriented care for Veterans who are homeless or at risk for homelessness.”
With his tenure, Dr. Byrne is eager for his research at BUSSW to influence these programs that affect people who are homeless in our communities: “Moving forward—and with the pandemic bringing the importance of the issues of housing insecurity and homelessness into sharper focus—I hope my research on these topics will continue to help move policy conversations towards lasting progress on these problems.”