Joseph Palombo was born in Cairo, Egypt, on July 18, 1928. He came to this country to pursue his studies at 19.

A New School for Social Research in New York graduate, he received a Master’s Degree in philosophy from Yale University. Subsequently, he graduated from the

School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago with a Master’s degree in social work.

Mr. Palombo pursued a lifelong interest in the emotional problems of children with learning disabilities and published numerous papers and several books on the subject. He was a frequent speaker at national conferences and many organizations. He consulted with numerous social service agencies in the Chicago metropolitan area for many years. He was the Administrative Director of the Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy Program at the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute. He was the co-founder and Dean of the Institute for Clinical Social Work, where he regularly taught until he died. In 1995, he helped establish the Rush Neurobehavioral Center and was the Associate Director for two years. In 1997, he declared himself semi-retired but continued to write, teach, practice, and conduct research on children with learning disabilities until shortly before his death.

He married Dorothy Denton on August 3, 1958, with whom he shared a lifetime of joy in service to others, music, and travel.

She died in 2019. He is survived by a daughter from a previous marriage, Karen Visser of Toronto.

Tributes for Joe Palombo: https://aapcsw.org/news/2023/joseph_palombo_06-10-2023.html

There will be a Memorial for Joe on Wednesday, June 28, at Lake Forest Place

1100 Pembridge Drive, Lake Forest, IL 60045 at 2 PM.

Memorial gifts can be made to the Joseph Palombo Center for Neuroscience and Psychoanalytic Social Work

Please pass this information along to others who may have known Joe.