I think a lot about how technology influences the human condition. I do research and work with various communities.    I study technology, data and nonprofit organizations, particularly those using technology for social change.  While I have looked at other issues, this was an opportunity to combine my passion for technology with my commitment to social justice.

I was born in Central New Jersey the eldest of four children.  My Dad ran a supermarket.  My Mom was a homemaker who had an impressive career in the tech industry after she raised her family.  My parents never had the opportunity to go to college, although the both would have wanted the experience.  After graduating from high school, I went to Mars Hill College in North Carolina. I thought it was a great place to go to school.

I was involved in social causes and politics in college, but shortly after graduating I served as a VISTA Volunteer in Birmingham, Alabama. I worked with indigent defendants in a county jail as part of a pre-trial release program, sponsored by Miles College, a Historically Minority Serving Institution in Ensley, Alabama.  This was an eye opening experience.  My clients came from a different place.  They were poor, many used drugs and many came from neighborhoods that lacked hope. I was horrified by what I saw and I knew then that I wanted to change some of the forces that led to the situations That I encountered.  This was hard and often frustrating work.

After finishing my tour in VISTA,   I decided to go to graduate school at the University of Alabama.   I knew that I needed far better skills.  While in graduate school, I worked for a National Center for Volunteers in Criminal Justice.   I learned about the importance of citizenship and citizen action. I also met the love of my life.  Marcia and I were married right after I graduated.

 In my early career, I was  a practitioner.  I worked mostly in child welfare and criminal justice.  Most of my work was in Appalachia.  I have had the opportunity to make a difference. I continue to work with communities and organizations.   My experience working with many committed people has informed my teaching and research in important ways. It is easy to look at a table of numbers and say that people are oppressed--its quite another matter to look someone in the face who has just experienced a major loss first hand. Bureaucracy often seems far better in a textbook that it does in the field.

I completed my PhD at the University of Tennessee while teaching full time and taking care of my critically ill wife. It was hard. My wife died after I finished my doctorate. I will always love her and miss the life we had together.

 I started teaching at The University of Virginia at Wise.  For  40 years I have had the privilege of working with a number of America's future leaders. My most recent social work teaching posts have included  Indiana University, Boston College and the University of South Carolina.  

In the early 2000s, after teaching social work for many years I joined the School of Urban Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Delaware. SUAPP was an interdisciplinary school with a range of faculty and an innovative approach called the Delaware Model.  The school had five centers that did research and practice in the communty and supported most of our students. Urban affairs was a core area and we had some global leaders on the faculty. Of course, things changed in the years I served on the faculty. The school is now the Biden School of Public Policy and Administration.

I love to do research.  For the past almost four decades, I have been an active contributor to research about technology and social change. When I first began my research in the mid 1990s, it was a rarely explored territory. Everyone was a pioneer and everything was new.  It was  exciting. I spent a lot of time defending myself from people who felt that this wasn't a serious topic for research.   Then came Jessie Ventura, Howard Dean and Move On.  This is now the mainstream and advocates who don't use these techniques are rapidly being considered dinosaurs. I did research on all the early developments. In the early 2000s I started to look at what is now called social media.  The past decade brought concerns about data (especially open data), high technology and social change.  I am currently looking at the role of data and data science in social change.  This is an exciting new area and I can see data science adding substantially to the future of social change practice.  Equally or possibly more important is the community effort to deal with and utilize technology to build a stronger society.

Over the years, I have involved colleagues, students, former students, and community partners in my research.  I have constantly crossed institutional, disciplinary and
national boundaries in conducting my research and selecting research collaborators.  I have successfully mentored new scholars in this area, many of who now
have their own research programs.

While I think scholarship is important in itself, I strive to create scholarship that is useful for those whose efforts directly contribute to social change. I bring my understanding of practice to my research.   I am fascinated by implementation science and the quest to bring new and exciting developments to the realties of practice. We have the opportunity to build a new practice, informed by data and technology, that meets the challenges of our rapidly changing society.

I keep busy. I work hard.  I write, do research and work on various service efforts.  I also edit a journal.  I also play hard. My  hobbies are Traveling.  Photography, Creating Dioramas, Lighthouses, Old Forts, Railroads and reading about History and Politics.

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(c) 2001-2025 by John G. McNutt. All Rights Reserved. Limited Permission is Granted for Reproduction for Non-Commercial Educational Purposes provided that the material remain in its original form and proper credit is extended.   Disclaimer:   The content of all linked sites are beyond my control and I assume no responsibility for their content.    Photos and artwork from the Microsoft Clip Art Gallery and my collection   Revised 08/01/25