Devon Brooks, PhD, MSW, is Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Associate Professor at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work. A member of the USC faculty since 1999, he previously served as Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Associate Dean for Curriculum. He earned a BA in Psychology from George Mason University and both his MSW and PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. 

Dr. Brooks' career has been shaped by a central question: How can we better prepare people and organizations to address complex social challenges? That question connects his work as a researcher, educator, and academic leader and has taken his scholarship from child welfare and family services to workforce development, educational innovation, leadership, and emerging technology.  

As Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Dr. Brooks provides strategic leadership across the School's academic enterprise, including academic programs, curriculum, accreditation, student success, and educational innovation. His work has included developing and strengthening academic programs, leading curriculum transformation, building collaborative teams, and translating ambitious institutional goals into sustainable educational practices.  

His current scholarly and professional interests center on the future of social work education and the human services workforce. He is particularly interested in how universities and organizations prepare professionals for rapidly changing practice environments through workforce development, intercultural competence, leadership, and the thoughtful use of emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence.  

Throughout his career, Dr. Brooks has led and contributed to externally funded research, evaluation, and training initiatives designed to strengthen the human services workforce and improve services for children, families, and communities. His recent work includes major initiatives focused on public behavioral health workforce development, expanding pathways into social work education, and preparing social workers for practice in juvenile justice settings. Earlier, he served as a principal investigator for a national initiative to expand adoption-competent mental health services.  

Dr. Brooks began his scholarly career studying child welfare, foster care, adoption, family preservation, and racial and ethnic disparities. His research also examined transracial adoption and gay and lesbian foster and adoptive families, contributing to the evidence base informing policy and practice with increasingly diverse families. That work continues to inform his broader interest in strengthening the people, organizations, and systems that serve individuals, families, and communities.