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For Illinois Institute of Technology Professor of Psychology Eun-Jeong Lee, creating better, more effective support systems for individuals from marginalized communities is just another day’s work.

Lee’s latest project, conducted with fellow Illinois Tech professors Nicole Ditchman and Lindsay Sheehan, is part of the . It aims to maximize support for youth with disabilities and their families as they work to make seamless transitions from high school to college and then continuing into the labor force.

The project is funded by the United States Department of Education through the Illinois Department of Human Services. It is part of a five-year, $10 million grant.

While schools generally do have some sort of a support system in place for these students preparing to make this transition, it’s often underutilized by those who need it most. The Illinois Pathways to Partnerships Project aims to not just supplement what those schools are already doing, but also fill in gaps where services are needed but not provided by anyone.

“If you take a look at the service structure, a lot of times schools have their own role—supported by the Department of Education at the federal level—but then it’s all cut off once they graduate from high school,” says Lee. “College education and vocational places are not well-embedded into the high school education, so that’s where we see the gap and disparity. We want to create a wider net, including younger ones coming into our services so they can get proper information, get ready to transition into high school, college education, or the workforce.”

So far, Illinois Tech has teamed up with Illinois State Board of Education, Centers for Independent Living, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to create a wide-ranging support network for youth with disabilities and their families.

Getting all of the groups on the same page can sometimes be a challenge, but Lee hopes that difficult conversations will ultimately lead to a better support network.

“There’s a lot of different voices trying to land onto the same page, that’s probably the biggest struggle,” says Lee. “Every time we have a monthly meeting, something pops up, maybe a question we never thought of before. It’s challenging, but it’s a natural part of the process. I’m pretty optimistic about how it’ll benefit the vulnerable population.”

In a related project, Lee has been awarded nearly $600,000 from the National Institute of Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research Field to develop Tech-Jobs, a 10-week career development, goal persistence, and job placement program meant to help Black college students with disabilities complete degrees and find employment in tech fields.

“It’s basically a tool for them to make some better adjustments in their academic programs,” says Lee. “Not getting A’s, but how they can locate proper resources, get accommodations, how to navigate and communicate with the course instructors and potential employers. Those skills are critical for them to develop academic and career success.”

Lee continues, “That 10-week program is built on how to improve their social skills, communication skills, and advocacy skills. Especially related to their disability component, students need to know that they have a right to ask for proper accommodation. They need to contact a disability resource center in a proper matter of time to have support in place.”

Lee also works on a number of projects aiming to support other marginalized communities, including a study examining the workplace microaggressions among individuals with spinal cord injuries and a National Institutes of Health-funded project to develop a comprehensive rehabilitation program, including speech therapy and rehabilitation counseling for Korean-speaking immigrants with Parkinson’s disease and their caregivers, with Yunjung Kim at Florida State University.

“We want to focus on Korean immigrants and see what happens if we provide speech therapy and education and training in Korean,” says Lee. “What will be the effectiveness of that intervention? If we see huge benefits from this first-language-based services, we can use the same logic to other immigrant populations who speak English as a second language.”

While Lee says it was a no-brainer for her group to develop the pilot for Korean-speaking immigrants because she and her partners on the project are all Korean, they hope that the template they create can be used to expand to other language groups throughout the U.S.

Throughout all her projects, Lee’s highest priority always remains the same: to build support systems for individuals from marginalized communities.

“All linked together, those marginalized groups experience a lot of barriers and challenges in order to access services and support,” says Lee. “A lot of times, they don’t feel connected with support systems. Hopefully, my programs help them not only to be able to navigate the health care or vocational services properly, but at the same time motivate them to know they can do this.”