Matthew Bakko (hq0072)

Matthew Bakko is an interdisciplinary scholar who researches and teaches how social service providers can effectively implement and influence policy to benefit marginalized groups within dynamic service contexts. His interests are guided by his social work practice experiences as a case manager, program evaluator, and community organizer in nonprofit, governmental, and grassroots community-based settings. He explores how social service providers and organizations shape (and are shaped by) their policy, resource, (inter)organizational, and institutional contexts, which affect street-level policy implementation, service outcomes, and social change. To study this, he primarily conducts mixed-methods research that examines social service providers and related actors working at the intersection of social welfare and criminal legal systems.

University of Michigan
Joint PhD Program in Social Work and Sociology
School of Social Work and Department of Sociology
Doctor of Philosophy, December 2023

Washington University in St. Louis
Brown School of Social Work
Master of Social Work, December 2014

Central European University
Department of Gender Studies
Master of Arts in Critical Gender Studies, June 2013

Minnesota State University Moorhead
School of Social Work and Department of Political Science
Bachelor of Social Work, December 2007
Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, December 2007

• Social Welfare Policy, Programs, and History
• Organizational Management and Theory
• Policy and Program Implementation
• Community Change
• Research Methods and Evaluation
• Human Behavior in the Social Environment

• Policy Implementation
• Frontline Social Service Providers
• Human Service Organizations
• Social Welfare Policy and Programs
• Intersection of criminal legal and social welfare systems
• Institutions and Institutional Change
• Philanthropy and Resources
• Mixed Methods