Lukas Champagne, MSW
Lukas Champagne, MSW, earned his MSW (AM) degree from the University of Chicago with an emphasis in Global Social Development Practice. Following a nearly 20-year career as a cook and laborer, during which he volunteered as a youth advocate in family court for children in foster care, Lukas completed a BA in sociology, with a minor in human rights. During his graduate studies in Chicago, he worked with immigrant and refugee youth as a policy analyst and political organizer, to change Language Access policy in Chicago Public Schools. Lukas also worked in Johannesburg, South Africa, analyzing and developing policy and direct practice interventions to address breakdowns in Foster Care placements, and as a case manager for 0-3-year-olds and their families on Chicago’s south side. He is currently employed as an intensive case manager for refugees in New Haven experiencing medical, legal, and mental health barriers during the resettlement process.
Lukas has published work related to the treatment of the Black Power Movement within social work histories, as well as on settlements and neighborhood centers with Dr. Robert Fisher; on refugee solidarity practice with Dr. Scott Harding and Dr. Kathy Libal; and is presently involved in several projects related to experiences of the criminal legal system with Dr. Sukhmani Singh.
Lukas’s dissertation research aims to put critical race theory in conversation with exclusion framing in the immigrant and refugee incorporation literature, to examine political and civic participation as well as critical consciousness for communities of color with refugee pasts.
AM (MSW)
University of Chicago
Research Interests:
International Social Work
Human Rights
Forced Migration
Race and Ethnicity
Critical Theory
Social Welfare Policy
