Ruth McRoy, PhD

Ruth McRoy, PhD, is one of the most highly regarded scholars in the field of adoption and child welfare. In September 2009, McRoy became the first holder of the Donahue and DiFelice Endowed Professorship at Boston College Graduate School of Social Work. For 25 years prior to moving to BC, she was a faculty member of the University of Texas at Austin School of Social Work, where she held the Ruby Lee Piester Centennial Professorship.
McRoy is a practitioner, academician, researcher, and lecturer whose extensive body of work has focused on such topics as culturally competent service delivery, family preservation, open adoptions, post-adoption services, transracial adoptions, and older child adoptions. She has published over 100 articles and 10 books, including: “Transracial and Inracial Adoptees: The Adolescent Years” (with L. Zurcher); “Emotional Disturbance in Adopted Adolescents: Origins and Development” (with H. Grotevant and L. Zurcher); “Special Needs Adoptions: Practice Issues;” and “Openness in Adoption: Family Connections” (with H. Grotevant).

McRoy’s recent honors include: the St. John’s 2010 Outstanding Scholar in Adoption Award; the 2013 Children’s Bureau Adoption Excellence Award; the University of Texas at Austin Graduate School of Social Work’s 2014 Alumni of the Year Award; and the 2014 Child Advocate of the Year Award from the North American Council on Adoptable Children.