Dr. Nino Rodriguez is a Post-Doctoral Humanities Fellow in Comparative Race and Ethnicity Studies through the Social Transformation Research Collective at DePaul. During his time at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), Dr. Nino was trained as a justice-oriented scholar-practitioner with a concentration in Diversity & Equity of Education.
As a practitioner, Dr. Nino uses his knowledge, skills, and approaches to support the evaluation, development, and implementation of restorative justice praxis (policies, programs, and practices) aimed at fostering equity in the black community, spaces that black people navigate, and throughout the African Diaspora.
In addition, Dr. Nino’s scholarship focuses on the liberation of black males via the deconstruction of black manhood and masculinity with the intent of positioning black males to redefine what it means to be a black man in America. Currently, he focuses on amplifying the voices of adolescent black males (ages 13 to 18) to operationalize their views and experiences during the development of “well-intentioned” programs, policies, and practices created to “serve them” at the community, state, and national levels.