Welcome to IRISE 2020-2021

Racial justice scholarship often illuminates and articulates the conditions and circumstances that minoritized communities live and experience on a daily basis and over generations. The very best of racial justice scholarship puts the tools of knowledge production into the hands of the communities experiencing the impacts of socio structural inequality and systemic oppression. It also does the work of translating or speaking multiple languages including academic publication, policy engagement, grassroots community organizing, and often the politically charged work of resisting mainstream approaches to research and praxis.

I’m honored and humbled to be taking on this interim director position because I believe that IRISE models this approach to racial justice research, scholarship and creative work. I’ve been involved as an affiliated faculty for years and witnessed the power of being transparent and unapologetic about our goals to use research, scholarship, and creative works toward “dismantling systems of oppression and inequity” as articulated by IRISE founding director, Dr. Tom Romero. As someone who has lived watching these systems impact my own family and community, it is my responsibility and obligation to be part of this dismantling and reconstruction. Thank you for this opportunity. I look forward to building together toward a better future.

To learn more about Professor Beltrán and her scholarship, visit her portfolio: https://portfolio.du.edu/rbeltra6

Ramona Beltrán, MSW, PhD

Associate Professor

University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work

Interim Director, Interdisciplinary Research Institute for the Study of (in)Equality