Bonnie Young Laing

Director, Hill Consensus Group and faculty member, Dept. of Social Work, California University of PA

Bonnie Young Laing is a faculty member in the Social Work Department at California State University of Pennsylvania. She is a native of the Hill District and is currently the Director of the Hill District Consensus Group. She holds a master of social work degree with a concentration in community health and mental health from West Virginia University and a doctorate in social work from Virginia Commonwealth University. Dr. Laing's scholarship documents some of the beauty and folly of community organizing and community development in African American communities, which she has learned from more than 20 years of effort helping to transform Pittsburgh's Hill District. She has published work on organizing for economic justice, labor/community partnerships, slums and affordable housing, youth organizing and culturally competent community practice. She is a member of LDI Class 1, and she is the proud wife of Justin Laing and mother of Kufere, Etana and Adeyemi.