Ebony N. Perez,PhD, MSW
Department Chair Undergraduate Social Work
Ebony N. Perez, Ph.D., MSW, is the Department Chair of Undergraduate Social Work at Saint Leo University. She earned her doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction: Higher Education Administration at the University of South Florida. Ebony has 13 years of post-masters social work experience, and eight years of teaching experience. Her practice experience is primarily in working with children and adolescents who had learning exceptionalities and co-morbid psychiatric diagnosis. She worked with this population in a variety of settings including their natural families, therapeutic foster care, research environments, and an inpatient psychiatric hospital setting. She also has six years’ experience in counseling in a community college setting. She began teaching as an adjunct with Saint Leo in 2014 and was hired full time in 2015. She assumed the responsibilities of Associate Chair in 2018 and became the department chair in August 2019. Dr. Perez considers teaching to be her ministry and enjoys the energy of a classroom. She finds teaching to be challenging and rewarding simultaneously. She has assisted in several department initiatives including LEAD Day, Immersion, developing the Social Justice Camp, and many others. Dr. Perez’s research focuses on curriculum development, social justice and anti- racist pedagogy in undergraduate social work. Her work has been presented at multiple national and international conferences, including at the American Educational Research Association and The Learner Conference and published in Rebus and the ECCSSA Journal.
