Loyola University Chicago

Center for Urban Research and Learning

Graduate Fellows

Graduate Fellows Photo

A graduate fellows meeting.

Center Graduate Fellowships enable graduate students to participate in collaborative research projects with community-based organizations, social service agencies, health care providers, businesses, and government in Chicago's city and suburbs. Through their research and teaching projects, fellows are active participants in Loyola University Chicago's efforts to improve the quality of life for all members of the Chicago metropolitan community.

The Graduate Fellows are selected from a pool of applicants and matched to team projects based on skills and interest. The Fellows serve in a facilitation role for the projects and act as the link between Loyola faculty and undergraduates and community researchers to keep projects on track. 

CURRENT GRADUATE FELLOWS

  • Profile

    Casey Callahan

    Casey (they/them) is a dual JD/MSW student at Loyola University Chicago. They earned a bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Biola University with a minor in Social Justice, Human Rights, and Conflict Transformation. Their research interests include housing-first interventions and anything surrounding the criminalization of homelessness.
  • Profile

    Ariel Fleenary

    Ariel is currently enrolled in Loyola’s dual degree program for Social Work and Women’s and Gender Studies. She took three years between undergrad and the start of her graduate program to work with foster care youth in a residential setting and spent one year at Ruth Ellis Center where she worked exclusively with trans and gender-nonconforming youth in the foster care system. Her research interests include LGBT+ health topics and anything related to sex or relationships.
  • Profile

    Arli Mohamed

    Arli is a PhD candidate in the higher education program at Loyola University Chicago. Before transitioning to Loyola, Arli was at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where she earned her bachelor's and master's degree. There she worked in multiple capacities with students from diverse backgrounds, especially first-generation and other underrepresented populations, to have a seamless transition to postsecondary education.
  • Profile

    Travis Moody

    Travis is a PhD student in the Sociology department at Loyola University Chicago. His research interests include race and ethnic studies, and urban communities. Specifically, Travis is interested in studying how racism affects and influences different forms of people activity.
  • Profile

    Sarah Thorngate

    Sarah is a Ph.D. student in sociology at Loyola University Chicago. In addition to being a graduate student, Sarah works as an academic librarian at Northwestern University. Broadly speaking, her interests are in education inequality, feminized labor, and the power dynamics surrounding information access and use.
  • Profile

    Vinchenzo Vassalotti

    Vinchenzo (he/him) is a Ph.D. student in the Applied Social Psychology program here at Loyola. His research interests include marginalized identity focuses such as BIPOC communities and Queer communities and the intersection of in-group/out-group influences with self-identity along with an emphasis on public policy and local initiatives.
  • Profile

    Austin Wonder

    Austin is currently enrolled in the BA/MA Sociology program at Loyola University Chicago. He is completing his Master's Thesis, exploring the topic of police and prison abolition. His research interests include police and prison abolition, revolutionary social movements, public housing, and gentrification.