About

Dr. Rosario Ceballo has been a Professor of Psychology and Women’s & Gender Studies (WGS) at the University of Michigan for 24 years. At Michigan, she served as Chair of the Department of WGS and as Associate Dean for the Social Sciences in the College of LSA. Utilizing a resilience framework, her research investigates factors that help protect youth’s academic and psychological functioning from the contextual risks associated with living in poverty, such as exposure to community violence. Her research draws upon quantitative as well as qualitative methods, and her work has received funding from NSF and NIH. As of January 2022, Dr. Ceballo will serve as a Professor of Psychology and Dean of Georgetown College at Georgetown University.

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Ceballo, R., Cranford, J. A., Alers-Roja, F., Jocson, R. M., & Kennedy, T. M. (in press). What happens after school? Linking Latino adolescents’ activities and exposure to community violence. Journal of Youth and Adolescence. Available online: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10964-021-01480-6

Dr. Deborah Rivas-Drake is a Professor of Psychology and Education at the University of Michigan. Together with the Contexts of Academic + Socioemotional Adjustment (CASA) Lab, she examines how school, peer, and family settings can support adolescents in navigating issues related to race, ethnicity, racism, and xenophobia and how these experiences inform young people’s academic, socioemotional, and civic development. Currently funded by the W.T. Grant Foundation and National Science Foundation, her work seeks to illuminate promising practices that interrupt racism and xenophobia and that help set  marginalized youth on trajectories of positive contribution to their schools and communities. 

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Rivas-Drake, D. & Umaña-Taylor, A. J. (2019). Below the Surface: Talking with Teens about Race, Ethnicity, and Identity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Professor Córdova received his Ph.D. from Michigan State University and graduated a Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Minority Fellow. After completing his National Institutes of Health-funded postdoctoral training at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Professor Córdova joined the faculty at the University of Michigan School of Social Work. His research focuses on Latino health inequities, particularly as it relates to the prevention of substance use and HIV in adolescents. Most recently, Professor Córdova received an early career development award from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Grant# U01PS003316-01), to develop and test the efficacy of a family-based, drug abuse and HIV preventive intervention to be delivered via the internet. He is the recipient of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities Loan Repayment Program. Professor Córdova enjoys collaborating with students in all aspects of the research process. He is interested in using community-based participatory research, as well as both qualitative and longitudinal methodologies to work toward narrowing and ultimately eliminating health inequities among Latino populations.

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Cόrdova, D., Heinze, J., Hsieh, H. F., Mistry, R., Salas-Wright, C. P., Cook, S. H., Zimmerman, M. A. (Epub ahead of print). Are trajectories of a syndemic index in adolescence linked to HIV vulnerability in emerging and young adulthood? AIDS. doi: 10.1097/QAD.0000000000001717.

Cross received her MSW from the School of Social Work and a PhD in Developmental Psychology from the University of Michigan. Her research program utilizes a strength-based approach to examining family and cultural factors that promote healthy development and mitigate the risk of poor psychological and/or educational outcomes for Latinx adolescents and families. She is particularly interested in examining the role undocumented status plays in family processes and adolescents’ outcomes, as well as the protective effects of ethnic-racial socialization and identity development. To inform her research, Cross utilizes qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methodologies, and she draws on not only her personal experience as a Latinx immigrant but also her dozen years of involvement in the Latinx immigrant community of southeast Michigan as both an advocate and a Portuguese/Spanish interpreter.

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Cross, F. L., & Gonzalez Benson, O. (2021). The Coronavirus Pandemic and Immigrant Communities: A crisis that demands more of the social work profession. Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work, 36(1), 113-119. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886109920960832

Professor Lorraine Gutiérrez has a joint appointment with the School of Social Work (SSW) and Department of Psychology at the University of Michigan and is a faculty associate in American Culture. She also is a member of the SSW Community Organization Learning Community. Her teaching and scholarship focuses on multicultural praxis in communities, organizations and higher education. She brings to her work community-based practice and research in multiethnic communities in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Detroit and Seattle. Current projects include identifying strategies for multicultural community-based research and practice, multicultural education for social work practice, and identifying effective methods for learning about social justice. Her contributions to undergraduate education have been recognized by the Arthur F. Thurnau Professorship. She is currently an editor or the Journal of Community Practice.

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Dessel, A., Westmoreland, A., & Gutierrez, L. M. (2016). Reducing heterosexism in African American Christian students: Effects of multicultural education courses. Equity & Excellence in Education, 49(3), 241-253.https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2016.1194100

Angela X. Ocampo is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Faculty Associate in the Center for Political Studies and the Latina/o Studies Program at the University of Michigan. Dr. Ocampo specializes in the study of race and ethnicity in U.S. politics with a focus on the Latina/o/x community. She teaches courses on political behavior and representation, minority politics, immigration and citizenship and Latina/o/x politics. Her research examines the political incorporation of racial, ethnic, and religious minorities both as every-day participants and as political leaders in American institutions. Dr. Ocampo’s current book project “The Politics of Inclusion,” which received the 2019 American Political Science Association’s Best Dissertation Award in Race, Ethnicity and Politics, examines the notion of perceived belonging to U.S. society and its influence on political interest and political engagement among Latinas/os/xs. Her research has been published in Political Research Quarterly, Social Science Research, Politics, Groups and Identities, The Forum, and Latino Studies. View her personal website here.

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Ocampo, Angela X., Sergio I. Garcia-Rios and Angela E. Gutierrez. 2021. Háblame de tí: Latino mobilization, group dynamics and issue prioritization in the 2020 Election. OnlineFirst. The Forum: A Journal of Applied Research in Contemporary Politics. DOI: https://doi.org/10.

1515/for-2020-2110

Associate Professor Robert Ortega’s research interests are in the areas of relationship development, group work practice, treatment interventions and service utilization particularly in the areas of mental health and child welfare. Dr. Ortega has presented and written on these topics with a special focus on diversity and social justice in research and practice. He is the principal investigator of the first national study of Latinos and child welfare. He is the recipient of multiple awards including 2017 UM SSW Distinguished Faculty Award, the 2015 Outstanding Service and Advancement of Cultural Competency in Child Maltreatment Prevention and Intervention Award by the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children, 2015 Blue Flame Lifetime Achievement Award, Organization of Latino Social Workers, MI Chapter, the 2013 National Council on Social Work Education Recent Distinguished Contributions to Social Work Education award, and the 2011 State wide NASW Lisa Putnam Award for Excellence in Child Welfare.

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Ortega, R. M., & Duntley-Matos, R. (2020). Cultural Sensitivity in the Context of Cultural Humility. In Encyclopedia of Social Work. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199975839.013.1287 

Dr. Mara Cecilia Ostfeld is a Research Scientist at Poverty Solutions in the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. Her research broadly focuses on the relationship between race, gender, media and political attitudes. Her work has been published in journals that include Social Forces, Political Behavior, Political Psychology and Political Communication, and been funded by places including the Institute for the Study of Citizens and Politics and the Russell Sage Foundation. She currently has a book project underway looking at the social and political factors that shape how we identify our skin color. During national elections, Mara also works as an analyst at NBC and Telemundo.

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Ostfeld, M. C., & Yadon, N. D. (2021). ¿ Mejorando La Raza?: The Political Undertones of Latinos’ Skin Color in the United States. Social Forces. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soab060 

Silvia Pedraza is Professor of Sociology and American Culture at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She was born and raised in Cuba, from where she immigrated with her family at the age of 12. Her research interests include the sociology of immigration, race, and ethnicity in America, and the sociology of Cuba’s revolution and exodus. Her work seeks to understand the causes and consequences of immigration as a historical process that forms and transforms persons and nations; as well as social revolutions’ rupture with the past and attempt to create a different present.

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Pedraza, S. (2021; forthcoming). Transnationalism and Gender Among Immigrants: Economic, Political, Social. In M. Zhou & H. Mahmud (Eds.), Economic Migrations to the United States. Oxford University Press. 

Awilda Rodriguez is an associate professor in the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education. Her research is at the intersection of higher education policy, college access and choice, and the representation of Black, Latino, low-income and first-generation students in postsecondary education. Her most recent project examines issues of equity in access to rigorous high school coursework and was recently named a William T. Grant Scholar to further this line of inquiry. Along with many policy reports and contributions to edited volumes, Rodriguez’s work has been published in Research in Higher Education, The Review of Higher Education, Diverse Issues in Higher Education, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. She received her doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education and previously worked as a research fellow at American Enterprise Institute’s Center for Higher Education Reform as well as a research associate at The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.

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Rodriguez, A. (2015). Tradeoffs and limitations: Understanding the estimation of college undermatch. Research in Higher Education, 56(6), 566-594. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-015-9363-1

Enid Rosario-Ramos’s research focuses on studying the intersections between adolescents’ participation in civic engagement activities and their development of critical literacy skills. Current work looks at the ways in which educators, both in school and out of school contexts, support youth’s development of civic engagement identities and skills. Additional research interests include Latinx education, disciplinary literacies, and social justice education. She received her PhD in learning sciences from Northwestern University.

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Rosario-Ramos, E., Rivas-Drake, D. & Jagers, R. J. (forthcoming). Implementing SEL with an equity lens: The role of “stretch” in teachers’ practice. In N. Yoder & A. Skoog-Hoffman (Eds.), Motivating the SEL field forward through equity. Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing.

Professor Teresa Satterfield Linares is a linguist whose areas of research include child bilingualism, first language acquisition (the roles of [psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic] factors in developing grammars), language contact phenomena in the context of U.S. (Afro-)Latinx identity and culture. She collaborates extensively on studies using fNIRS brain imaging techniques to inform theories of syntactic development and literacy research in bilingual children. She is the founder and director of the community-based Saturday Spanish academic program for Spanish-speaking children grades Pre-K to 5, "En Nuestra Lengua" (ENL). View her personal website here. 

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Satterfield, T. & J. Benkí (2019). Caribbean Spanish influenced by African-American English: US Afro-Spanish language and the new US Caribeño Identity.  In Valentín-Márquez, W. & M. Gonzáléz-Rivera, eds., Dialects from Tropical Islands: Caribbean Spanish in the US. New York: Routledge Publishers, 201–219. DOI:10.4324/9781315115443-12

Bernardette J. Pinetta is a current fifth-year doctoral student in the Combined Program of Education and Psychology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) where she majored in Political Science and Minored in Education Studies. Her interests broadly include: ethnic-racial identity development, ethnic-racial socialization in schools, teacher practices, and sociopolitical development. At the University of Michigan, her research focuses on how we can create opportunities for youth of color to develop strong and positive ethnic-racial identities in ways that foster their civic/political power in support of their communities that bear the brunt of social injustice. She is a Ford Predoctoral Fellowship and Rackham Merit Fellow recipient. 

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Pinetta, B. J., Blanco Martinez, S., Cross, F. L., & Rivas‐Drake, D. (2020). Inherently Political? Associations of Parent Ethnic–Racial Socialization and Sociopolitical Discussions with Latinx Youths’ Emergent Civic Engagement. American Journal of Community Psychology, 66(1-2), 94-105. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajcp.12435