Deborah Padgett is a Professor at NYU Silver. She is internationally known for her mentorship and advocacy of qualitative and mixed methods in research. She is the editor of The Handbook of Ethnicity, Aging, and Mental Health (1995) and The Qualitative Research Experience (2004), author of Qualitative Methods in Social Work Research (3rd ed., 2016) and Qualitative and Mixed Methods in Public Health (2012), and co-author of Program Evaluation (6th ed., 2015). This expertise led to her appointment to an Institute of Medicine panel examining veterans’ mental health (2012-2017).

Dr. Padgett’s book Housing First: Ending Homelessness, Changing Systems and Transforming Lives (2016, Oxford University Press) (with co-authors Benjamin Henwood and Sam Tsemberis) documents the rise of a ‘paradigm’ shifting approach to addressing homelessness in the U.S. and abroad. Dr. Padgett has lectured widely on the topic in Ireland, Scotland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Canada, and India.