With the goal of promoting community-engaged inquiry, scholarship, and service, CCHE and DePaul’s Irwin W. Steans Center hope to engage community partners to identify, understand, and respond to public health needs.
Launched in 2021, this program awards one faculty fellowship to a DePaul faculty member who has been developing health-focused and community-engaged scholarship. The faculty fellow is supported by The Faculty Scholarship Collaborative (FSC), and receives a $5000 stipend and a funded research assistant for three academic quarters. Community partners also receive a $1,000 stipend as a collaborator in the research process. This application has a rolling deadline. Please see application guidelines here.
Congratulations to our past Fellows!
2025-26 Recipient
Molly Netter, Assistant Professor, Nursing
Dr. Kachale Netter is an Assistant Professor and board-certified Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP-BC). She holds a PhD and brings extensive experience in family clinical practice, research, and academic instruction. Her teaching focuses on core sciences in the DNP track, translating complex biological concepts into practical knowledge.Her research centers on HIV prevention through Chemoprophylaxis, global health equity, and the social determinants of health. She is dedicated to building resilient healthcare systems, drawing on lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic to shape sustainable, culturally responsive care.
Read more about her work here.
2023-24 Recipient
Ansuk Jeong, Assistant Professor of Psychology
Dr. Jeong is an Assistant Professor in Community Psychology, DePaul’s Department of Psychology. She received her PhD in Psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, BA (Psychology, Korean Linguistics and Literature) and MA in Psychology at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea. Her project is titled, The Needs Assessed and the Intervention Designed to Promote Social Connection of Korean American Elderly in Chicagoland: A Solution Post COVID-19 Pandemic. Read more about her work here.
2022-23 Recipient
Nila G. Hofman, Professor of Anthropology
Tipped Wages and Benefits in the Restaurant Industry: an inquiry into health equity
Collaborating with Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC), a nonprofit organization fighting to improve the working conditions of restaurant workers, their research has explored health equities associated with compensation and benefits (or lack thereof) of workers in the restaurant industry. ROC, is a nonprofit organization fighting to improve the wages and working conditions of restaurant workers. Together, they have investigated the effects of the pay and benefits structures in the restaurant industry in the Chicagoland area and have examined the impact of different modes of restaurant workers’ pay and benefits on their health and well-being.
-With DePaul student Isatou Sallah
2021-22 Recipient
Sonya Crabtree-Nelson, Professor of Social Work
Head Injury and Strangulation in Swedish Hospital Emergency Department Domestic Violence Patients Before and During the Covid-19 Pandemic
-Community-engaged project with community partner – Pathways Program at Swedish Hospital
-Examines the health disparities that exist for patients with a history of intimate partner violence (IPV) who exhibit brain injury symptoms.
-With DePaul Graduate student Rumi Rivera-Lovato