Aliya Durham
Assistant Professor and Director of Community Engagement, School of Social Work
Aliya D. Durham has amassed 25 years of service to others—as an employee and volunteer—and is deeply committed to servant leadership, community development, equity, and philanthropy. She has worked at several health and human service organizations in the region including Operation Better Block, Inc., the Pennsylvania State University, Good Schools Pennsylvania, the National Council for Urban Peace and Justice, and Adagio Health. Most recently, she served as Vice President of Foundation and Government Relations and Core Service Executive for Social Responsibility for the YMCA of Greater Pittsburgh for nearly a decade.
Dr. Durham is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work specializing in Macro Practice. She teaches graduate courses in Human Services Management, Group/Intergroup Relations, Grant Writing, and an undergraduate course in Generalist Practice with Communities and Organizations. She manages the Browne Leadership Fellowship, one of many signature social work programs, designed to translate the core values of service, social justice, dignity and worth of the person, the importance of human relationships, integrity, and competence to non-social work undergraduate students. She recently redesigned and launched a new Community and Racial Equity Leadership Fellowship aimed at preparing graduate students traditionally underrepresented in social work bridge gaps between their undergraduate studies with experiences and skills to enter careers in macro practice settings. As Director of Community Engagement, Dr. Durham facilitates and advances opportunities for the School of Social Work to deepen and expand its community-engaged practices in research, teaching, service, and learning.
Dr. Durham has volunteered on various not-for-profit boards and committees in the city and county, most notably as co-founder and Board Vice Chair for the Homewood Children’s Village. Since becoming faculty at Pitt, Dr. Durham has served on numerous university-wide and school-specific committees. She is currently a co-investigator on two collaborative grant-funded research projects.
Aliya earned a Bachelor of Arts (Africana Studies), a Bachelor of Science (Psychology), a Master of Social Work (Macro Practice), and a Master of Public and International Affairs (Economic and Social Development) from the University of Pittsburgh. She earned her doctorate in Community Engagement at Point Park University in 2020 with research interests converging at the intersections of collective impact, sense of community responsibility, and distributed leadership theories.