Maria J. Ferrera

Maria Joy Ferrera, PhD, LCSW, is a Professor in the Department of Social Work and Co-Director of The Center for Community Health Equity, a partnership between DePaul and Rush University dedicated to eliminating health disparities and promoting the concept of belonging as a driver of wellbeing. She is a second-generation Filipina American scholar, clinician, and advocate. She holds a PhD and MA from The University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice. Combining academic research with over two decades of clinical experience, Dr. Ferrera specializes in mental health, health equity, and the systemic challenges faced by immigrant and historically marginalized communities.

Dr. Ferrera’s community-engaged research draws from indigenous psychology, critical ethnic studies, and feminist perspectives to address historical trauma. Her work has been supported by The Mellon Foundation as a Fellow for the Urban Collaborative Community Research Initiative, the HumanitiesX Program, and the Social Transformation Research Collaborative (STRC). She utilizes digital media and documentary filmmaking as powerful mediums to elevate the voices of asylees and advocate for immigrant rights. She is an affiliate faculty member of Critical Ethnic Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, Refugee and Forced Migration Studies programs and steering committee member of the DePaul Migration Collaborative. She is co-founder of the Chicago- based Coalition for Immigrant Mental Health and steering committee member and pro bono mental health forensic asylum assessor for The Midwest Human Rights Consortium.

To learn more, visit her Scholarship Profile.

Selected Publications:

De Los Reyes, W., Ferrera, M.J., Hwang, S., Silva, R. Á., Quarfoot, K., Hasan, N., & Salusky, I. R. (2023). University-Community Collaborations: A Vehicle for Capacity Building and Mutual Learning within an Immigrant Mental Health Coalition. Collaborations: A Journal of Community-Based Research and Practice, pp. 1–10.

Ferrera, M.J., Moody-Freeman, J., Martinez, S., Russo, A., Asis, D., Dino, C. (2023). Healing Justice: Engaging an Ethic of Care in the Academy and Within our Communities. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology.

Ferrera, M.J. & Crabtree-Nelson, S. (2022). Critical Empowerment Frameworks Paramount to Social Justice Work. Advances in Social Work-Special Issue on Re-Envisioning the Social Work Profession, Education, and Practice, 22(2).  

Ferrera, M. J. & Giri, M. (2022). What Should Count as Best Practices of Forensic Medical and Psychological Evaluations for Children Seeking Asylum? AMA Journal of Ethics, 24(4): E267-274. doi: 10.1001/amajethics.2022.267

Ellis, B., Offidani-Bertrand, C. & Ferrera, M.J. (2022). “No way! Like only Hispanics are illegal”: Examining the Racialized Psychosocial Development of Migrant “Illegality” Across Immigrant Groups in the United States. Journal of Adolescent Research, 1-34

Ferrera, M. J. (2017) Integrating Principles of Positive Minority Youth Development and Health Promotion to Empower the Immigrant Community: A Case Study in Chicago. Journal of Community Practice, 25 (3-4): 504-523  (DOI:10.1080/10705422.2017.1354241). 

Ferrera, M. J. (2017). The Transformative Impact of Cultural Portals on the Ethnic Identity Development of Second Generation Filipino American Emerging Adults. Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Diversity in Social Work, 26(3). 

Ferrera, M. J. (2016). The Burden of Colonial Debt and Indebtedness in Second Generation Filipino American Families. The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare, 43(3), 155-178.    

Ferrera, M. J., Feinstein, R.T., Walker, W., & Gehlert, S. (2016). Embedded Mistrust Then and Now: Findings of a Focus Group Study on African American Perspectives on Breast Cancer and its Treatment. Critical Public Health, 26(4):455-465. 

Ferrera, M. J., Sacks, T.K., Nixon, J. T., Perez, M., Asis, D., & Coleman, W.E. (2015). Empowering Immigrant Youth in Chicago: Utilizing CBPR to Document the Impact of a Youth Health Service Corps Program. Family and Community Health Journal, 38(1):12-21.