The Home and Displaced People | Washington

Home is more than a place to stay: how can a fuller understanding of home inform approaches to migration and support of displaced people.

22 -23 September 2022 | Catholic University of America, Washington DC, USA

See the agenda here | See the article here | Watch the video here

KEYNOTE | Monsignor Robert J. Vitillo, Secretary General of the International Catholic Migration Commission since June 2016. A national of the United States of America, Msgr. Vitillo is a trained social worker with broad expertise in migration and refugee services, child protection, social services, human rights, HIV/AIDS and global health.

Session 1

• Home as Integral Part of Displaced People Interventions and Policy Design

Myria Georgiou, Professor in the Department of Media and Communications at LSE, where she also serves as Research Director. Professor Georgiou researches and teaches on migration and urbanisation in the context of intensified mediation.

Kelly Ryan, Coordinator for the Inter-Governmental Consultations on Migration Asylum and Refugees (IGC), Geneva.

Heather Salfrank Joseph, Senior Advisor, Office of the Director Senior Advisor, Office of the Director USCIS. She has carried out extended field work with migrants and refugees, both domestically and internationally.

Session 2

• The Transition from a Stable to a Disruptive Home Experience for displaced people

Magaly Sánchez, Senior Researcher and Scholar at the Office of Population Research at Princeton University, after being Professor at the Instituto de Urbanismo in the Universidad Central de Venezuela. Professor Sanchez-R has studied International Migration to the United States, with special interest in the construction of Latino Identities.

Robert Destro, Professor of Law at The Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law in Washington, D.C. He has been a member of the CUA Law faculty since 1982, served as Interim Dean from 1999-2001, and as Director of the University’s Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies from 2017-2019.

Suzan Ilcan, Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology and Legal Studies, and Program Director of the University of Waterloo’s MA in Global Governance program at the University of Waterloo and the Balsillie School of International Affairs.

Session 3

• Assimilation and Integration of Migrants and Displaced People

Christine Mahoney, Professor of Public Policy and Politics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and Director of Social Entrepreneurship at the University of Virginia.

John Kluge, Founder of the Refugee Investment Network, the first impact investing and blended finance collaborative dedicated to long-term solutions to forced migration. John also co-founded the Alight Fund, a for-profit investment fund for refugee entrepreneurs, and Toilet Hackers, a social enterprise dedicated to scaling access to dignified sanitation for the 2.5 billion people without a toilet. 

Rochelle Davis, Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology in the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. Dr. Davis’ research focuses on refugees and conflict, specifically, Palestinian, Syrian, and Iraqi refugees.

Sandra Barrueco, Professor of Psychology and Fellow of the Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies at The Catholic University of America. Dr. Barrueco specializes in the prevention and early intervention of developmental difficulties, particularly among language-minority, immigrant, and migrant children.

John Paul Ryan, Research Clinical Coordinator at the Geneva Foundation and is currently completing his Ph.D. in Psychology at the Catholic University of America.

This Experts Meeting was sponsored by STI and organized by The Home Renaissance Foundation

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