Martha N. Ozawa Scholarships

Full Tuition Admission Scholarships

Prospective graduate students have more opportunities for funding than ever before thanks to a major gift from one of the school’s first PhD graduates.

Dr. Martha Ozawa, who received a master’s degree in 1966 and PhD in 1969, left nearly $6.5 million to be used entirely for social work graduate student scholarships. Dr. Ozawa passed away in 2016 after an illustrious career. Thanks to her significant gift, students who did not think it was financially viable to earn a master’s in social work, can now consider it possible.

The purpose of this scholarship is to provide full tuition scholarships to several MSW students each year. In accordance with Dr. Ozawa’s wishes, the scholarship will be awarded solely on the basis of academic merit.

With this gift alone, the school hopes to award 12-15 students pursuing a master’s degree full tuition scholarships each year.

Dr. Ozawa spent most of her four-decade long career on faculty at the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis where she studied income security, health, long-term care, and American public-assistance programs, such as Social Security and Medicaid. Born in Japan, Dr. Ozawa earned a degree in economics from Aoyama Gakuin University in 1956 before coming to the U.S. to study at UW-Madison. She authored more than 150 peer-reviewed articles, 28 book chapters, and three books, including Women’s Life Cycle and Economic Security: Problems and Proposals. She held the first endowed chair at the Brown School and received several prestigious awards throughout her career. She retired in 2013. That same year, the UW-Madison School of Social Work recognized her with the Distinguished Alumni Award.