Lisa Reyes Mason

Professor Lisa Reyes Mason is a social worker, scholar, and advocate for climate justice. Biracial and bicultural, Mason draws inspiration from her maternal roots in urban Philippines and paternal roots in rural California. On faculty at the University of Denver, Mason co-created a Master’s in Social Work (MSW) pathway in Ecological Justice, the first of its kind in the U.S. She also co-edited the book People and Climate Change: Vulnerability, Adaptation, and Social Justice—a collection of lived experiences and case studies of climate injustice from the Global South and North—and served the City and County of Denver as an inaugural member of its Sustainability Advisory Council.

Mason received her MSW and PhD from Washington University in St. Louis, where she was a Chancellor’s Fellow for advancing diversity in the professoriate and Olin Fellow for exceptional women to become leaders in society. Her BA is from the University of Pennsylvania, where she majored in Folklore and Folklife, or the everyday knowledge of people and how wisdom and ways of living are passed from one generation to the next. Mason is also a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, having served in Guinea, West Africa, from 1998-2000.