Dean, School of Social Work
Dean and Robert Lee Sutherland Chair in Mental Health and Social Policy
Professor, Department of Psychiatry
School of Social Work; Dell Medical School
As a national leader, Zayas is currently president of the St. Louis Group for Excellence in Social Work Research and Education, which represents the leading research schools of social work. In 2012, he was elected as a fellow of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare. In 2017, he was elected to the Executive Board of the Academy. Previously, Zayas held the position of member-at-large of the executive committee of the National Association of Deans and Directors of schools and programs in social work.
His professional interest are to adapt interventions for diverse ethnocultural families; suicide attempts among young Latinos; child and adolescent mental health; family functioning; advocacy for U.S. citizen-children.
Zayas is the author of Latinas Attempting Suicide: When Cultures, Families, and Daughters Collide (Oxford, 2011), which is based on his decades of clinical and research experience with Hispanic families and children. He is regularly sought out to speak to professional and lay audiences on this topic and is frequently cited in the news media.
He is also the author of Forgotten Citizens: Deportation, Children, and the Making of American Exiles and Orphans (Oxford, 2015), a book about the plight of U.S.-born children of unauthorized immigrants who live under the constant threat of deportation or have been deported. Forgotten Citizens received the 2016 Book Award Honorable Mention by the Society for Social Work and Research book award committee, and was runner up for the 2016 Hamilton Book Award.