DMC Solutions Lab
The Solutions Lab is designed to foster interdisciplinary, community-engaged research projects. Successful collaborations involve scholars and community partner organizations working hand in hand to identify and address critical areas of need. The unique partnership between academia and community organizations ensures that the solutions developed are not only theoretically sound but practically impactful. Each Solutions Lab project receives funding for six to 12 months of dedicated work. Teams are often comprised of DePaul faculty, staff, students and even external academic collaborators. These interdisciplinary teams' partner with community organizations to co-design research projects that have tangible benefits for the community. The grant funding is thoughtfully distributed between the academic team and the community partner organization, reflecting the value and importance of both in the project's success.
Faculty also can develop cross-disciplinary experiential learning opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students through their Solutions Lab project. Students will participate in problem-solving and advocacy by helping to design new frameworks, policies, regulations and legislation that will improve the processes that govern asylum and immigration. Past examples of this have included writing country conditions reports, providing consultation to a refugee resettlement organization, among others.
Dr. Ramya Ramanath, 2025 Grantee
Dr. Lamont Black, 2024 Grantee
Dr. Kate Cooper, 2024 Grantee
Meet Our Grantees
2026-2027
Nyssa Snow-Hill
Exploration to Sustainment: An EPIS Study of Chicago’s One System Initiative October 2026 - March 2027
Nyssa Snow-Hill, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at DePaul University and director of the Implementation Science and Advocacy for Youth Experiencing Homelessness (ISAY) Lab. Her research focuses on implementation science, homelessness, housing stability and community-engaged intervention development. She partners with service providers, policymakers, and people with lived experience to improve the implementation of evidence-based programs within housing, behavioral health and social service systems.
Dr. Snow-Hill's work has examined homelessness among youth and adults, substance use, traumatic stress, housing stability, and organizational factors that influence the adoption and sustainment of innovative services. She has led and collaborated on community-engaged research projects focused on intervention development, workforce implementation and systems change. Her research aims to generate practical knowledge that can help organizations more effectively serve populations experiencing housing instability and other complex social needs.
Through the DePaul Migration Collaborative Solutions Lab, Dr. Snow-Hill is partnering with All Chicago to examine implementation of Chicago's One System Initiative (OSI), a citywide effort to integrate shelter services for newly arrived asylum seekers and individuals experiencing homelessness. Guided by the Exploration, Preparation, Implementation and Sustainment (EPIS) Framework, the project will identify factors that shaped implementation of OSI and generate recommendations for communities seeking to develop migration-responsive shelter systems.
Maria Joy Ferrera
Sustaining the Healers: Building and Evaluating a Supported First-Case Pathway to Grow the Forensic Evaluator Workforce | October 2026-March 2027
Maria Joy Ferrera, PhD, LCSW, is a professor within DePaul University’s Department of Social Work and co-director of the Center for Community Health Equity (CCHE), a partnership between DePaul and Rush University to promote health equity. She is co-founder of the Coalition for Immigrant Mental Health (CIMH), a collaborative, community based and research informed initiative that is a partnership between immigrants regardless of status, mental health practitioners, community organizers, researchers and allies. Ferrera is on the Steering Committee of The Midwest Human Rights Consortium (MHRC), a network of medical and psychological professionals providing critical evidence needed to fairly determine asylum claims. As a licensed clinical social worker, she conducts pro bono mental health forensic asylum assessments for MHRC. Partnering with the MHRC, this project strengthens the volunteer forensic evaluator workforce by piloting a Supported First-Case Pathway. This project builds MHRC’s workforce sustainability and involves a mixed-methods study identifying what retains volunteer evaluators. Findings will inform the development of a practice brief for organizational partners and a comprehensive clinician support program that addresses retention, wellness, and peer consultation needs.
2025-2026
Mónica Reyes
Cultivating Community: Rhetorical Practices of Migrant Volunteers in Chicago - Mónica Reyes | May 2025 to May 2026
Mónica Reyes Ph.D. was a 2026 Solutions Lab Grantee. Dr. Reyes is an assistant professor in the Writing, Rhetoric & Discourse Department at DePaul University and she specializes cultural rhetorics, critical refugee studies, feminist rhetorical literacies, and community-based participatory action research with a particular attention to the intersections of rhetoric, storytelling, and migration. She is the author of Rhetoric and Storytelling within the U.S. Asylum Process (2024). Her work has appeared in Grassroots Activisms: Public Rhetorics in Localized Contexts (2024), Enculturation: A Journal of Rhetoric, Writing & Culture (2020), and Postcolonial Text (2019). Dr. Reyes' project, Cultivating Community: Rhetorical Practices of Migrant Volunteers in Chicago, partnered with Nuevos Vecinos. Nuevos Vecinos is a grassroots organization that provides asylum seekers with a vital support network, offering stability and community in times of deep uncertainty. Their free store model offers migrants themselves the opportunity to volunteer with the space, creating a sense of dignity and agency. Dr. Reyes' project explored with the community partner how volunteers use volunteer work to create community, purpose and belonging in the context of restricted access to work permits and how their contributions help them navigate systemic barriers while fostering resilience. Key findings included volunteerism functioning as a survival strategy for relationship-building, community infrastructure, and assertion of humanity. Student deliverables included professional memos, visual summaries of the work, accessibility recommendations, and community reports for the organization. From the project, Professor Reyes plans to build from her research with an upcoming publication and she plans to continue to provide Nuevos Vecinos with desired resources.
Jay Baglia
Access and Understanding: Navigating Migrant Care with CommunityHealth - Jay Baglia | May 2025 to January 2026
Jay Baglia PhD was a 2025-2026 Solutions Lab Grantee. His project Access and Understanding partnered with CommunityHealth which is a free healthcare clinic that is the largest provider of free healthcare for the uninsured, including migrants in the Chicago community. His project focused on creating patient-centered videos for CommunityHealth around topics such as Diabetes care and Know Your Rights to be displayed in their waiting room and sent to patients. These videos will be accessible in Polish and Spanish. Dr. Baglia draws from over 25 years of experience working in healthcare to improve communication among patients and providers. At DePaul, Dr. Baglia teaches courses in Health Communication, Health Literacy, and Health Disparities. He has published award-winning scholarship in the area of health communication. Prior to joining DePaul, Baglia was a medical educator for Lehigh Valley Health Network (LVHN) in Allentown, Pennsylvania. For LVHN, he developed curriculum and assessment tools for the Department of Family Medicine Residency Program, planned and facilitated workshops in the Teaching Leader Series, and served as study coordinator for the Cultural Awareness Implementation Team baseline assessment group. Dr. Baglia plans to finalize a book chapter focused on academic and community partnership from his experience on this project alongside previous knowledge.
2024-2025
Ramya Ramanath
Delineating Pathways into Homelessness Among Forced Migrants: Lessons and Recommendations from a Multi-Country Implementation Analysis - Ramya Ramanath | September 2024 to July 2025
Ramya Ramanath was a 2024-2025 Solutions Lab grantee is an Associate Professor at DePaul University's School of Public Service where she chairs its International Public Service degree program. Her research previous projects, primarily in India, the US, and East Africa, draw on disciplinary perspectives in organizational behavior, urban sociology, planning, anthropology, and political science. Her resulting publications have focused on interorganizational and organization-community relations in affordable housing, resettlement and rehabilitation, capacity building, program evaluation, and gender-responsive policy and practice. Her project Delineating Pathways into Homelessness Among Forced Migrants fills a gap in tracking homelessness statistics amongst migrants and creates the knowledge for groundwork advocacy around irregular migrant homelessness. Her project compared strategies from multiple global cities including: Santiago, Chile; Pretoria, South Africa; Chicago, USA; Montevideo, Uruguay; and Glasgow, Scotland. The research examined the policies and practices that precipitate (or preclude) homelessness from the perspective of service providers, both governmental and nongovernmental, working with forced migrants.
2023-2024
Kathleen Arnold
New Refugee Categories, New Tactics: Country Condition Reports for All - Kathleen Arnold | July 2023 to August 2024
Kathleen Arnold Ph.D. was a 2023-2024 Solutions Lab grantee. Dr. Arnold is a political theorist specializing in issues of statelessness, sovereignty, and inequality. She is the author of various articles, chapters, and books. Her project for the Solutions Lab involved working with The Resurrection Project (TRP) as her community partner, to produce targeted country reports to help with asylum applications. Working with a team of students, Dr. Arnold has accomplished creating resources and country conditions affidavits to support new arrivals to Chicago for over 10 countries including Afghanistan, Iran, Cameroon, Columbia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mexico, Haiti and more. Dr. Arnold's reports can be accessed by request through TRP.
Kate Cooper
Building a Resilient Volunteer Tutor Program to Serve Refugees - Kate Cooper | July 2023 to August 2024
Kate Cooper Ph.D. was a 2023- 2024 Solutions Lab grantee. Dr. Cooper is an assistant professor of communication studies in the College of Communication. Her project partnered with Forging Opportunities for Refugees in America (FORA) in order to create mentorship and design a sustainable training program for volunteers. The research team compiled findings from FORA focus groups and surveys into a detailed report. In addition, they compiled best practices from peer-reviewed research that focused on the effectiveness of volunteer programs.
Lamont Black
Helping Migrants Overcome Hurdles Associated with Money and Remittances Using New Technologies - Lamont Black | July 2023 to August 2024
Lamont Black Ph.D. was a 2023- 2024 Solutions Lab grantee. Dr. Black is an Associate Professor of Finance who focuses on digital transformations of business with an emphasis on emerging technologies including AI and the Metaverse. His project addressed migrant finances from the perspective of money, savings, and remittances, assessing migrant financial hurdles and the potential for new technologies to provide better financial inclusion practices. You can access a summary of his findings below.