Beyond Disciplinary Silos: Interdisciplinary Collaboration and Mentorship for Social Work In a Rapidly Changing Technological Era

Emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, immersive computing, and other digital tools are rapidly reshaping health and social systems. These transformations are changing how people access care, information, services, and community supports, while also raising urgent questions about equity, ethics, participation, accountability, and human dignity. In this context, social work cannot remain confined within disciplinary silos. If the profession is to help shape the systems increasingly structuring everyday life, it must expand its capacity for meaningful interdisciplinary collaboration across domains such as engineering, medicine, public health, data science, digital innovation, and community-partnered practice.

This roundtable examines a timely and field-defining question: how can social work faculty and students build, navigate, and grow within interdisciplinary collaborations in a rapidly changing technological era? More specifically, the session asks what it takes to cultivate strong cross-disciplinary partnerships, how social work can avoid being marginalized in technology-driven spaces, and what kinds of mentorship, leadership, and collaborative infrastructure are needed for scholars and trainees to thrive. At stake is not simply whether social work will participate in technological change, but whether it will help shape that change in ways that remain accountable to justice, relationships, and the common good.

The roundtable brings together five complementary perspectives. One panelist will speak from extensive experience leading interdisciplinary collaborations across social work, engineering, public health, and community-engaged health research. A second panelist, a senior scholar and center leader, will contribute rich experience at the intersections of AI, social work, and public health, offering insight into how interdisciplinary research agendas, institutional platforms, and collaborative networks can be built and sustained. A third panelist will bring a leadership perspective on interdisciplinary innovation in social work, with particular attention to ethics, international social work, and the broader institutional and intellectual conditions needed to support collaboration in a rapidly changing technological era. A fourth panelist will discuss how justice-oriented immersive computing projects, including a VR 360 learning experience on housing inequities in Champaign, Illinois, were developed through collaboration with local community experts and two campus innovation and teaching lab partners, illustrating how interdisciplinary partnerships strengthen community-engaged learning and create new opportunities for innovation. A fifth panelist, a doctoral trainee in data science working at the intersection of AI, health, and social inquiry, will contribute the student perspective on entering, navigating, and sustaining interdisciplinary collaborations while translating computational methods into socially grounded research questions.

These perspectives collectively position interdisciplinary collaboration not as optional enrichment, but as essential infrastructure for the future of social work. By foregrounding collaboration, mentorship, ethics, leadership, and institutional support, this roundtable invites attendees to consider how social work can not only participate in technological transformation, but also help direct it toward equity, accountability, and the common good.