SUSAN HESS, MSW, LCSW-IL, is an Associate Professor of Social Work Practicum Education at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work. She is a transnational speaker with expertise in trauma-informed care and healing-centered engagement. Her dedication to healing and resilience focuses on communities impacted by violence, including those affected by intimate partner violence, incarceration, and war. Hess is a Co-Founder of Trauma Informed Learning Alliance.

Recently, she returned from an academic delegation to Israel with faculty from Harvard, Dartmouth, Stanford, and a group of Italian activists where she represented USC. During this mission, she experienced both second-hand and first-hand trauma. She and Miri found themselves in need of regulation and support to process the profound pain of witnessing the devastation, an experience that will take a lifetime to comprehend. The contrast between antisemitism in academia and the sadness and resilience in Israel added further complexity to the experience, which inspired the co-creation of this season’s podcast.