David Stoesz

David Stoesz is an American academic, policy analyst, author, and social entrepreneur. Stoesz worked as a welfare caseworker and welfare department director and has published about social policy, child welfare, international development, and national politics. He earned his PhD at the University of Maryland-Baltimore in 1980, subsequently teaching at San Diego State University and Virginia Commonwealth University where he served as Samuel Wurtzel Professor of Social Work. He is a professor emeritus in the Virginia Commonwealth School of Social Work, and a founder of Up$tart, a company whose products assist US college students in applying for federal benefits.

Stoesz's book, Quixote’s Ghost: The Right, the Liberati, and the Future of Social Policy received the Prohumanitate Literary Award.

In 2010 Stoesz was inducted into the National Academy of Social Insurance.