People

Roberto G. Gonzales

Roberto G. Gonzales is the Richard Perry University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, with appointments in the Department of Sociology and the Graduate School of Education. His research focuses on factors that shape and reduce economic, legal, and social inequalities among vulnerable and hard-to-reach youth populations as they transition to adulthood. Professor Gonzales’s work has been featured in top journals, including the American Sociological Review, Annual Review of Sociology, and Current Anthropology. His published research has been widely cited and has garnered awards from multiple disciplines. He is an active public scholar and has advised a broad range of stakeholders in the private and public sectors, has briefed members of the U.S. Congress, and has testified on matters of immigration policy before the U.S. Senate. He has also written opinion pieces for The New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, and The Guardian and is often quoted in the popular media.

At Penn, Professor Gonzales is the founding director of the newly formed Penn Migration Initiative, a university-wide effort aimed at advancing and promoting interdisciplinary scholarship and intellectual exchange around issues of immigration policy and immigrant communities. Prior to his appointment at Penn, Professor Gonzales held faculty positions at Harvard University, the University of Chicago and the University of Washington. His research has been supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the WT Grant Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, the James Irvine Foundation, and the Heising-Simons Foundation.

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Jennifer Allsopp

Jennifer’s research centres on how people move and mobilise to support what they perceive to be viable futures for themselves, their families and their societies in the context of migration. Her most recent work explores the relationship between immigration control, welfare and wellbeing, with a focus on gender, aging, and the politics of membership and belonging. She is passionate about comparative studies in international migration and the pursuit of innovative methodologies and is currently collaborating with colleagues across five continents to develop a new toolkit for ethical and effective migration research partnerships.

Jennifer is a regular advisor to the European Parliament’s Civil Liberties (LIBE) Committee on ethics, anti-smuggling and human rights and has contributed to multiple government inquiries into migration and the human rights of children and young people. Her current work looks at storytelling and survival, seeking to bridge her background in the social sciences and the humanities in a forthcoming monograph, Reading Dante with Refugees.

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Irina Chukhray

Irina Chukhray is a PhD candidate in sociology at University of California, Davis. Her mixed-method research examines immigrant youth’s structural adaptation. Specifically, she studies supports and constraints in access to higher education as well as wellbeing among 1.5 immigrant generation (foreign-born students who arrived in the US prior to age 18).  

Prior to graduate school, Chukhray was the Program Manager for an international collaborative study with OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) on students’ socioemotional skills and a Research Analyst for the Houston Education Research Consortium at Rice University (directed by Dr. Ruth N. López Turley).  

Program Manager for OECD study. Chukhray led a team composed of Rice University researchers and Houston Independent School District (HISD) stakeholders in surveying students' social and emotional skills, information that was previously unavailable to HISD, one of the largest school districts in the US. Houston was the only city representing the US in the international study of 10 countries. Chukhray led the team in surveying about 1,500 students in 32 schools (obtained an 87% student response rate).  Chukhray also collaborated and negotiated with school district partners, such as with the Assistant Superintendent of Research and Accountability for HISD and with international partners such as the OECD in France and the Australian Council for Education Research in Australia. 

Research Analyst at HERC. Chukhray conducted research examining high school students' challenges in navigating their post-secondary educational path, tested a stereotype threat intervention designed to boost students' academic performance, and examined the nuances of students sharing the race/ethnicity of their teacher. 

Chukhray’s work led to meaningful change: findings from her HERC research aided the Houston school district in applying for and receiving state funding to hire additional college advisors in order to make advising more equitable. Additionally, the OECD study provided the Houston school district with its first tools to measure students’ socioemotional well-being.

Koreana Ko 

Koreana Ko is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Social Policy at the University of Birmingham. She is broadly interested in older immigrants, immigration policies and skills-based immigration systems. Her current research explores the interplay between concepts of home and country of residence choices for old age using a case study of older Korean immigrants in the South of England. She holds a BA in Social Policy Administration and Sociology and a Master of Economics in Australian Political Economy from the University of Sydney and an MA in Anglophone Studies from the University of Le Havre Normandy. Prior to her doctoral studies, she worked in corporate banking in London. 

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