Dr. Shannon Lane

Dr. Shannon Lane is a political social worker and social work educator. She worked in the U.S. Senate for ten years, including eight years with U.S. Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle, and has advocated at the local, state and federal level on issues such as access to voting rights, health care and intimate partner violence. Dr. Lane’s research examines efforts to increase the political involvement of social workers and underserved populations, methods of improving social work education, and gendered inequalities within social work. Her first book, Political Social Work: Using Power to Create Social Change, with Dr. Suzanne Pritzker, was published in 2018. Her second book, Social Policy in a Changing World, with Drs. Elizabeth Palley and Corey Shdaimah, came out in December 2019. She has also had two essays published in a special issue of Advances in Social Work, “Promoting Social Change: Policy Advocacy, Research, and Innovation in Social Work”:

• Creating a Culture of Voting in Direct and Generalist Practice: Training Field Instructors—Shannon Lane, Katharine Hill, Jason Ostrander, Jenna Powers, Tanya Rhodes Smith, Mary E. Hylton
• Clinical Social Workers, Gender, and Perceptions of Political Participation—Jason A. Ostrander, Janelle Bryan, Shannon R. Lane

Since 2004, Dr. Lane has worked with the Nancy A. Humphreys Institute for Political Social Work, conducting research, assisting social workers in voter engagement, and training more than 1,200 social workers across the country to run for office and take leadership roles in political campaigns. She also serves as co-chair of the Policy Conference 2.0 planning committee, a member of Council on the Role and Status of Women in Social Work Education of the Council on Social Work Education, and on the editorial board of the Journal of Policy Practice and Research. She currently serves as a Deputy Registrar of Voters in Connecticut.