Colleen Galambos will serve as Interim Head of School and Associate Dean for the Helen Bader School of Social Welfare. This important executive leadership role serves as the chief academic officer for the school. Dr. Galambos was appointed in May 2026. She brings significant administrative expertise in health organizations and higher education, including decades of faculty development experience to this role. Prior senior academic administrative appointments include serving as department chair, associate dean, associate director, and director.
Dr. Galambos is a social work professor and the Helen Bader Endowed Chair in Applied Gerontology at UW-Milwaukee. She is a fellow of the Gerontological Society of America, a fellow of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare, and a National Association of Social Workers Pioneer. She is currently a member of the Health Care and Public Health Advisory Committee for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and the Milwaukee County Age-Friendly Steering Committee. Dr. Galambos serves on several journal editorial boards.
Past appointments include the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Committee on the Health and Medical Dimensions of Social Isolation and Loneliness in Older Adults and Committee on the Quality of Care in Nursing Homes, and the 2020 National Academy of Medicine’s (NAM) Vital Directions for Health and Healthcare project. She received the Association for Gerontology in Education in Social Work’s Leadership Award in 2023 and is a 2020 recipient of the Milwaukee Business Journal’s Women of Influence. Dr. Galambos is listed in Stanford University’s top 2% of the world’s most impactful scientists in the fields of social work, nursing, public health, and social sciences.