David J. Pate, Jr. joined the faculty in January of 2006. Professor Pate received a Bachelor of Social Work from the University of Detroit, a Masters of Arts in Social Work from the University of Chicago, School of Social Service Administration and then earned a Ph.D. in Social Welfare at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

His fields of special interest are welfare reform policy; child support enforcement policy; fatherhood; domestic violence; and the intersection of race, gender, and poverty. He has over twenty years of direct service, management, and policy experience in the field of social work.

Professor Pate’s research projects involve the use of qualitative research methods to examine the relationship of non-custodial fathers of children on welfare and their interaction with their children, the child support enforcement system, the mothers of their children, and the incarceration system.

His most recent publications explore the issues of poor fathers, welfare policy, domestic violence, and their children. These publications include "Child Support Enforcement and Father Involvement among Victims of Intimate-Partner Violence," (Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment, and Trauma, 2008); Johnson, W., D. Pate & J. Givens, (2010), Big Boys Don’t Cry, Black Boys Don’t Feel: The Intersection of Shame and Worry on Community Violence and the Social Construction of Masculinity among Urban African American Males: The Case of Derrion Albert. In C. Edley, Jr. and J. Ruiz de Velasco (eds.). Changing Places: How Communities Will Improve the Health of Boys of Color, University of California Press; and "Life After PRWORA: The Involvement of African-American Fathers with Welfare-reliant Children and the Child Support Enforcement System," In W. Johnson (ed.), Social Work With African American Males: Health, Mental Health, and Social Policy, Oxford Press (2010). An ethnographic documentary titled “Fatherhood: Six Men, One City” (2009) chronicles the lives of six African American fathers' experience with fatherhood and the child welfare, child support, employment, and criminal justice system.

• Serves as the Co-Chair for the Social and Economic Justice Track for the Annual Meeting sponsored by the Council for Social Work Education (CSWE), and is an appointed member to the Commission for Diversity and Social and Economic Justice for CSWE.
• Elected member of the National Academy of Social Insurance.
• Member of the Advisory Group for Closing the Racial Wealth Gap and Disparities in Child Well-Being Paper sponsored by the Insight Center for Community Economic Development based in California.
• Participated on the legal research and writing team which submitted two amicus brief for the Center for Family Policy and Practice (CFFPP) in support of the petitioner in the Turner v. Rogers case to the United States Supreme Court. Oral arguments were presented on the case in Washington, D.C. on March 23, 2011.
• Curriculum vitae

Prior to his appointment at UWM, He was the Founder and former Executive Director of the Center for Family Policy and Practice, and held a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP), University of Wisconsin-Madison.