Lisa Werkmeister Rozas, Ph.D.

Professor

Lisa Werkmeister Rozas, LCSW, is a professor at the University of Connecticut School of Social Work and director of the Puerto Rican and Latino Studies Project.

A first-generation Peruvian American, she is a bilingual scholar whose work bridges social work education, critical theory, and community-engaged practice.

Her research focuses on coloniality, White supremacy, implicit bias, intersectionality, and their effects on health, mental health, and social systems. Her scholarship emphasizes critical consciousness, cross-racial dialogue, anti-oppressive practice, and decolonial approaches in social work education, including the integration of Indigenous knowledge, dialogic pedagogy and relational mindfulness practice.

Dr. Werkmeister Rozas is actively engaged in community-based and international work, including collaborations with a nongovernmental organization in Peru to develop community-led training programs supporting children experiencing homelessness. In Connecticut, she works with Latino communities to support the development of legislative agendas addressing structural inequities and community-defined needs.

Her scholarship has been published in multiple peer-reviewed journals, including International Social Work, Clinical Social Work Journal, The British Journal of Social Work, Social Work Education, Advances in Social Work, and the Journal of Ethnic & Cultural Diversity in Social Work, among others. She is co-author of Racism in the United States: Implications for the Helping Professions, 3rd edition (Springer). The 4th edition is expected in 2027. She publishes as Werkmeister Rozas and L.W. Rozas.

Dr. Werkmeister Rozas joined the University of Connecticut faculty in 2004. She has taught courses including Social Justice and Dialogue, Special Populations, Human Oppression, Teaching and Learning in Social Work Education: Roles and Contexts, and IGFP practice courses, among others. She also teaches a travel study course, Implications of the Holocaust for Social Work Practitioners, which takes students to Germany to examine the Holocaust, its impact on German society, and its implications for social work practice.

Dr. Werkmeister Rozas earned a Ph.D. in social work and an MSW from Smith College School for Social Work; an MA in English literature from the Catholic University of America; and a BA in English and communications with a minor in German from Dominican University. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine. She is fluent in English, Spanish, and German.

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