Interviews: Lived Experience
Interviews: Lived Experience foregrounds the people involved in equitable change. Questions revolve around their perceptions of the world, their ideas of how change happens, and how they see their journey in relation to action for equitable change.
Doreen Abubakar – Community Placemaking Engagement Network (CPEN)
Doreen Abubakar is the Founder and Executive Director of Community Placemaking Engagement Network (CPEN), a nonprofit organization located in New Haven, Connecticut that aims to improve communities from the inside out by investing in community assets.
Abubakar’s work focuses on addressing the challenges and problems that urban communities in New Haven face, focusing on the Newhallville community in particular.
CLICK HERE to access her interview!
The interviews below are Reflections on Community by attendees of the 2025 Urban Research-Based Action Network (URBAN) 2025 National Conference “Traveling Together: The Many Paths of Community Engaged Research” in Provincetown, RI on April 3-6, 2025.
JCEC was able to interview over 30 participants — researchers, community members/activists, independent consultants, and organizational representatives who collaborate with each other on community-based research — to get their insights on what collaboration is, what they collaborate on, and what they feel are crucial elements of collaboration.
Click on the CLICK HERE link in each attendee’s interview to hear their unique perspectives on community and collaboration.
There are over 30 interviews! We are still finalizing and uploading them one-by-one — visit again to catch the latest additions!
Dr. Michelle Fine
In this interview, conducted at the 2025 URBAN National Conference, Dr. Michelle Fine, one of URBAN’s founders, reflects on her work in academia and with marginalized communities, emphasizing participatory research and epistemic justice. Stressing the importance of collaborative research, humility, and accountability; Fine advises emerging researchers to avoid extractivist research, engage with movements, and leverage their privileges for collective impact.
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Dr. Mark Warren
In this interview, conducted at the 2025 URBAN National Conference, Dr. Mark Warren reflects on 30-year career in community-engaged research that has focused on education justice, racial equity, and community liberation. With others, he co-founded Urban 12 years ago and advises emerging and practiced scholars to stay true to their values, be self-reflective, be aware of power dynamics, and build lasting relationships.
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Dr. Ce’Vin Barnes
In this interview, conducted at the 2025 URBAN National Conference, Dr. Ce’Vin Barnes reflects on leadership, collaboration, and the future of urban communities and HBCUs. His journey from U.S. Army officer to civic leader and scholar offers a perspective that blends service, resilience, and purpose.
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Marcus Queen
In this interview, conducted at the 2025 URBAN National Conference, Marcus Queen reflects on his community advocacy work and how collaboration is at the center of his sports coaching, community action, and engagement in various local initiatives, such as being a board member and Tree Ambassador. Marcus advises community workers to be friendly, well-informed, and persistent, despite challenges and stresses the need for younger energy in community work.
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Dr. Ana Antunes
In this interview, conducted at the 2025 URBAN National Conference, Dr. Ana Antunes reflects on how she came to be a community-engaged researcher, the importance and joy of working with youth and multimedia, and how valuing and trusting people and their perspectives is crucial for social change.
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Enrique Rivera
In this interview, conducted at the 2025 URBAN National Conference, Enrique Rivera talks about his experiences as a filmmaker, teacher, investigative journalist, and community organizer. Having been raised in Bridgeport, CT, with a stint in LA, Enrique offers insights on the many ways he and his family have worked to create community and work for justice.
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Dr. Kemi Oyewole
In this interview, conducted at the 2025 URBAN National Conference, Dr. Kemi Oyewole reflects on her work as a researcher; on the importance of relationships in ensuring that research is inclusive, responsive, and impactful; and on the importance of institutional collaborations — particularly between more and less resourced institutions.
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Dr. Juan Sorto
In this interview, conducted at the 2025 URBAN National Conference, Dr. Juan Sorto reflects on climate change, immigration, grassroots collaboration with local El Salvadorian communities through Friends of El Salvador, and the importance of leveraging non-traditional funding sources like private donors in this work.
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Tony Passino
In this interview, conducted at the 2025 URBAN National Conference, Tony Passino reflects on the impact of youth voices on social justice, his current PhD program at UMass Boston that focuses on community-based action research, and the importance of curiosity, and relationship-building in the context-specific endeavor of collaboration.
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Dr. Angela Frusciante
In this interview, conducted at the 2025 URBAN National Conference, Dr. Angela Frusciante shares how collaboration drives her work bridging academia, philanthropy, and community. As founder of Knowledge Designs to Change (KD2Change), she delivers innovative research methods and fosters intentional partnerships in and through community to advance equity and social change.
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Stand by for JCEC’s Interview with Darío León from the URBAN National Research Network Conference “Traveling Together: The Many Paths of Community Engaged Research” in Provincetown, RI on April 3-6, 2025.
Dr. Aleticia KS Tijerina
Ellie Estrada
In this interview, conducted at the 2025 URBAN National Conference, Ellie Estrada discusses her research journey and connection to the Urban Research Network. She emphasizes the importance of understanding community through personal experiences, critiques extractive academic practices, and advocates for collaborative ethics/obligations to communities, and community-led review boards. Committed to diverse forms of practice, direct action, and hope in social change efforts. Ellie also reflects on the challenges of reconnecting with her identity identity and community, emphasizing the complexity and discomfort inherent in this process.
CLICK HERE to access the full interview!
Stand by for JCEC’s Interview with Gwendolyn Brantley from the URBAN National Research Network Conference “Traveling Together: The Many Paths of Community Engaged Research” in Provincetown, RI on April 3-6, 2025.
Stand by for JCEC’s Interview with Hanna Filizola Ruiz from the URBAN National Research Network Conference “Traveling Together: The Many Paths of Community Engaged Research” in Provincetown, RI on April 3-6, 2025.
Stand by for JCEC’s Interview with Juan Pablo Blanco from the URBAN National Research Network Conference “Traveling Together: The Many Paths of Community Engaged Research” in Provincetown, RI on April 3-6, 2025.
Stand by for JCEC’s Interview with Kara Straun from the URBAN National Research Network Conference “Traveling Together: The Many Paths of Community Engaged Research” in Provincetown, RI on April 3-6, 2025.
Stand by for JCEC’s Interview with Kwesi Brookins from the URBAN National Research Network Conference “Traveling Together: The Many Paths of Community Engaged Research” in Provincetown, RI on April 3-6, 2025.
Stand by for JCEC’s Interview with Muhammad Mbowe from the URBAN National Research Network Conference “Traveling Together: The Many Paths of Community Engaged Research” in Provincetown, RI on April 3-6, 2025.
Stand by for JCEC’s Interview with Rebecca London from the URBAN National Research Network Conference “Traveling Together: The Many Paths of Community Engaged Research” in Provincetown, RI on April 3-6, 2025.
Dr. Ronald David Glass
In this interview, conducted at the 2025 URBAN National Conference, Dr. Ronald David Glass reflects on his status as an “elder” founder of the URBAN Research Network. He shares insights on the importance of leveraging institutional and relational power for funding and opportunities for community-engaged research and publication, ethics and humility as crucial orientations to the work, and the work’s necessity for commitment to anti-racist, anti-authoritarian, and liberatory action.
CLICK HERE to access the full interview!
Stand by for JCEC’s Interview with Susan Chenelle from the URBAN National Research Network Conference “Traveling Together: The Many Paths of Community Engaged Research” in Provincetown, RI on April 3-6, 2025.
Stand by for JCEC’s Interview with Tanya HillsTfrom the URBAN National Research Network Conference “Traveling Together: The Many Paths of Community Engaged Research” in Provincetown, RI on April 3-6, 2025.
Stand by for JCEC’s Interview with Tim Eatman from the URBAN National Research Network Conference “Traveling Together: The Many Paths of Community Engaged Research” in Provincetown, RI on April 3-6, 2025.