May is Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. During this time, we take an extra moment to celebrate the remarkable research successes this diverse community has contributed to the University of Oklahoma and beyond. To celebrate the month, we spoke with Chie Noyori-Corbett.
Noyori-Corbett is the associate director of research and professor in the the Anne and Henry Zarrow School of Social Work, Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences. She is also the founder and team leader of OU's Humanitarian Innovation Research Group, an affiliate of OU's Institute for Community and Society Transformation. She also holds affiliations with the Departments of Women and Gender Studies, International and Area Studies, and the Data Institute for Societal Challenges.
Noyori-Corbett came to the United States as an international student from Japan. She received her Bachelor of Science in business marketing from Suffolk University and received a Master of Science in Social Work as well as a doctorate in social work and from the University of Texas at Arlington. She began working with refugee populations as a social worker in Dallas, Texas where she was a program coordinator for refugee youth programs.
"I first came to OU after serving refugees and human trafficking victims as a social worker," Noyori-Corbett said. "I knew that I wanted to do needs and strength assessments for groups of refugees from Myanmar."
Beginning August 2017, armed attacks, massive scale violence, and serious human rights violations forced more than 700,000 Rohingya to flee their homes in Myanmar. Many came to the United States.
"Refugees came to the United States because of civil war and human rights violations, so their difficulties were more complicated and serious than other immigrants," Noyori-Corbett said. "However, their struggles have been hidden under the veneer of the model minority myth that all Asians are successful in this country."
Noyori-Corbett's research has been aided by internal seed funding from programs like the OU Humanities Forum and the Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts Seed Grant she received from Office of the Vice President for Research and Partnerships. With this internal seed funding, she collected data that helped secure larger external funding to support more complex research efforts.
"In 2020, there was an opportunity to apply for a large-scale internal grant called the Big Idea Challenge," Noyori-Corbett said. "We were selected as a semifinalist, and that led us to receive grants from the Data Institute for Societal Challenges, the Institute for Community and Society Transformation and the Institute of Museum and Library Services."
From that exercise, The Humanitarian Innovation Research Group formalized. The research team is working to develop a sustainable and holistic refugee resettlement model. To get there, the HIRG is looking at how public libraries can help refugees in their communities.
Learn more about the Humanitarian Innovation Research Group at ou.edu/HIRG
