Dr. Elizabeth Beck is a Professor in the School of Social Work at Andrew Young School of Policy Studies. Her research interests are in the areas of community development, forensic social work, and restorative justice. She has pursued these areas both as independent lines of inquiry and more recently as a consolidated focus of research. Her present research explores the role of restorative justice as a strategy to address youth violence and community development. In the fall of 2011 Dr. Beck with use her expertise in these areas as a Fulbright Scholar, whose work will include helping to create the first Masters of Social Work program in the West Bank.

Dr. Beck is author of 19 peer review articles, one law review article, and two books one of which is edited. Her book “In the Shadow of Death: Restorative Justice and Death Row Families,” published by Oxford University Press received the American Library Association CHOICE award for Outstanding Academic Title of 2007. Her most recent book, is an edited volume entitled, “Social Work and Restorative Justice: Skills for Dialogue, Peacemaking, and Reconciliation,” which explores restorative practices in traditional social work settings.

From 2006-2010 she was Principle Investigator to the Georgia Council for Restorative Justice, examining Defense Initiated Victim Outreach as a restorative justice strategy often used in death penalty cases. The project brought in over one million dollars in external funding.
Since 2007 she has been the Director of the Georgia State University School of Social Work Center for Community Social Work. Beck is also involved in a number of community based and forensic initiatives. She has consulted on numerous capital cases, served as an expert in state and federal cases, and provided training to hundreds of capital defense teams on the effects of community violence and poverty or individual development.