2019

Dr. Katharine R. Hobart Ph.D., MSW, LCSW is a long-standing practitioner, researcher, and professor of community practice social work.

Dr. Hobart currently teaches for Boston University School of Social Work in the Online Program and is involved in curriculum development and research with the Centre for Dignified Aging in Rwanda.

In 2011, Dr. Hobart was a Fulbright Scholar at Bishop Barham University College in Uganda helping to launch the first Masters of Social Work program in East Africa and conducting action-based research with rural elders. Upon her return to the United States in 2013, she was intrigued by the potential of online education as an essential platform for interdisciplinary and cross-continental collaboration, and has been committed to exploring its development. This work has allowed her to continue to teach and remain in contact with many of her former students all over the world. Prior to Uganda, Katharine taught at the University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work for many years while also practicing social work in a variety of diverse capacities, including running a federally-funded Administration on Aging intervention grant empowering frail elders in Colorado, living in Guatemala while working with a women’s microcredit organization, and practicing clinical social work in urban hospitals.

Throughout her 35+ year social work career, Katharine has committed to putting communities at the heart of her work, acting as a collaborative partner. She considers herself a practitioner and a teacher which has proven to work well in an applied discipline like social work. Katharine has consulted and lectured on program development, participatory monitoring/evaluation, and global aging issues in Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, Guatemala, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The ability to collaborate and work with colleagues from such diverse places has been one of the highlights of her career.

With much enthusiasm, Katharine attended The Miami Valley School from first to ninth grade with her five siblings. She went on to graduate from the Hotchkiss School and completed degrees from the University of Vermont, and Boston University School of Social Work. Her Ph.D. is from the University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work, where she taught from 1997–2010.

Katharine lives on a small farm outside of Boulder, Colorado, with her husband Jonathan, two horses, multiple chickens, barn cats, and a rowdy dog. They have two wonderful adult children— Max, an architect in Seattle, and Elsie, a public health practitioner in New Haven, Connecticut and soon-to-be Ph.D. student.