Visiting Scholars Speaker Series: Dr. Ashley Cureton, University of Michigan

Join us for our next speaker in the 2024–2025 Visiting Scholars Speaker Series! The Human Development & Quantitative Methods division hosts Dr. Ashley Cureton, who will share her research focus as it relates to the themes of this year’s One Book, One GSE program.

Dr. Ashley Cureton (Bhavalkar, she/her) is an Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work and Marsal Family School of Education at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She is also a LEAD Global Health Fellow through Washington University in St. Louis. Prior to her current role, she was a Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellow and lecturer in the School of Education and the Department of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Cureton identifies as a refugee and forced migration scholar who seeks to identify culturally specific interventions, programs, and policies to improve the educational, socio-emotional, and environmental outcomes of refugee youth and their families in the U.S. and abroad.

By engaging in community-based participatory research, she is further interested in the role of institutions (e.g., resettlement agencies, refugee-led organizations, schools) in supporting the distinct needs of these vulnerable groups. Her research builds on over a decade of research and practice focusing on child and adolescent development among refugee and migrant populations in global contexts like Uganda, South Africa, Zambia, Lebanon, Jordan, India, and the United States.

Prior to attending graduate school, Dr. Cureton worked as a research associate at Northwestern University’s Institute for Policy Research. She also served as a research fellow for the U.S. Department of State in Istanbul, Turkey, working with Iraqi and Syrian refugee youth in school and community settings. Dr. Cureton received a Ph.D. and master’s degree from the Crown School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice at the University of Chicago. She also received graduate certificates in forced migration and refugee mental health from Harvard University, University of Oxford, and Northwestern University.

This series of events is a wonderful opportunity to engage with the GSE community and explore the themes of this year’s One Book, Try to Love the Questions by Lara Schwartz.