Faculty kudos: Delgado-Romero focuses on giving back to community
Edward Delgado-Romero is a bilingual Latino, a first-generation college student and a son of immigrants. His earlier life experiences led him down a road of discovery; service; and, eventually, a world of change for not only other first-generation students who share his passion for helping others but also an entire community.
Surrounded by other children of immigrants while growing up, Delgado-Romero, a professor in the College of Education’s Department of Counseling and Human Development Services, noticed a lack of effective counseling services for members in the Latino community.
“I realized there wasn’t a lot of infrastructure or support for Latino students,” he said. “I saw some of my friends get held back for many years in school because they couldn’t speak English. As I grew older, I started understanding the role of culture and mental and physical health, and that a lot of professionals are not trained to address culture and language as part of health.”
With this in mind, Delgado-Romero focused his research on multicultural psychology and the challenges of bilingual therapy, which previously had not been studied closely by psychologists.