Research Partnerships at DU
A History of Collaboration
About Our Research
We leverage cross-institutional collaboration to address some of today’s most pressing challenges, producing interdisciplinary solutions that influence policymakers to effectively serve the public good. From Stanford to UChicago to NYU, we’ve refined our collaborative process through years of mutually beneficial relationships with institutions nationwide to understand and address challenges like climate change, HIV and youth homelessness.
DU’s current research efforts have been featured in news outlets like The New York Times. They include…
- exploring the effects of felony disenfranchisement.
- employing lasers as the medium for quantum science.
- using theatre to heal and rehabilitate inmates.
Whether our institutions have worked together in the past or not, we invite you to sign up to informed on all the ways we spark collaboration for impactful, public-good focused research initiatives.
Project Spotlight
One in 30 young people experience homelessness before reaching college age. To combat this, we established a national collaboration called REALYST: Research, Education and Advocacy Co-Lab for Youth Stability and Thriving.
REALYST is a national, multi-site collaboration between academic and community partners, with the goal of using research to understand youth homelessness. We believe that understanding will inform policies and lead to effective solutions aimed at ending homelessness and housing instability among young people.
We collected in-depth detail on the experiences of young people experiencing homelessness across multiple cities and communities, looking at factors like gender, sexual orientation, race, education and time spent in foster care. That information deepened our understanding of the problem and determine how solutions could be developed and applied on a community basis.
The project was a collaboration between DU, the University of Southern California, the University of Houston, the University of Missouri-St. Louis, Hunter College and Arizona State University, as well as a variety of community partners.
Kimberly Bender
Kimberly Bender is a professor of social work at the University of Denver's Graduate School of Social Work (GSSW), where she serves as Associate Dean of Doctoral Education. Dr. Bender primarily partners with young people experiencing homelessness in her work, a population she endeavors to empower and prevent adverse outcomes for.