2026 PhD Candidates
Author(s)
GSSW
Communication Team
Graduating University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work PhD candidates are ready to put their doctoral training to work as teachers and scholars who advance social work knowledge and social justice.
C. Riley Hostetter, MSW
C. Riley Hostetter (they/them) focuses on structural inequities in social service delivery and policy, centering the experiences of queer and transgender communities. Riley’s dissertation research investigates systemic inequities for queer and transgender young persons across foster care and homeless youth services, exploring the impacts of gender and sexual identity on the mental health outcomes, trajectories, and social networks of these youth. As a critically engaged scholar, Riley conducts community-engaged research alongside quantitative and theoretical analysis. With eight years of practice experience across child welfare and community behavioral health organizations, their professional background serves as groundwork for their research and teaching philosophies. Riley has an MSW from Portland State University, focusing on community-based practice and administrative leadership, and a BS in Psychology and Spanish from Iowa State University.
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Research Interests/Areas of Emphasis
Queer & trans community
Foster care & child welfare
Young adult homelessness
Critical approaches to systems
Social welfare policy
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Dissertation
- Exploring the Impact of Identity through Outcomes, Networks, and Ideals of Unhoused Queer and Transgender Former Foster Youth
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Favorite Local Bipoc-Owned Small Business
- Novel Strand Brewing 305 W 1st Ave Denver, CO 80223
Kristina Leilani Hulama
Kristina “Tina” Leilani Hulama (she/her) is a Native Hawaiian feminist scholar whose research interrogates how historical, structural, environmental, and contemporary forms of oppression shape health-seeking behaviors and outcomes, among Native communities and women. She is a licensed social worker with a BA and MSW in health from the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa and has more than a decade of experience in social services, including over three years of post-master’s practice in clinical social work, with plans to obtain clinical licensure by June 2026. Her scholarly trajectory is informed by the disproportionate morbidity and mortality experienced by Native Hawaiian women in Hawai’i’s healthcare system, shaped by persistent dismissal, disposability, and dehumanization in medical settings. These lived realities ground her commitment to examining healthcare structures that perpetuate inequities and to advancing frameworks oriented in justice, liberation, and healing. Her dissertation, situated within Critical Indigenous Feminism, Necropolitics, and Abolition Medicine, employs qualitative, mixed-methods, and arts-based approaches to theorize healthcare oppression and disseminate knowledge through Indigenous poetic forms.
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Research Interests/Areas of Emphasis
Indigenous and Women’s Health Inequities and Disparate Outcomes
Healthcare Oppression: Intersectional Discrimination, Epistemic Injustice, and Medical Gaslighting
Historical Trauma and Healing
Environmental Justice
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Dissertation
Weaving Decolonial and Critical Indigenous Feminist Methodologies: A Transformative, Mixed-Methods, and Arts-Based Study of Healthcare Oppression in Hawai’i
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Favorite Local Bipoc-Owned Small Business
- Picaera Puerto Rican Cuisine 1695 Platte Street Denver, CO 80202
Olivia Hunte
Olivia Hunte (she/they) is a Black queer femme dedicated to disrupting systems of oppression in society while centering pleasure and healing. Investigating the dynamics of power, privilege, and oppression shaping our realities, she is engaged in community-centered research with the intention of developing liberatory theoretical and practice frameworks promoting healing under the mentorship of Dr. Ramona Beltrán. As a current doctoral scholar within the Graduate School of Social Work (GSSW) at the University of Denver, their current research centers on the intersectional sense of belonging experiences of Black LGBTQIA+ people. Olivia also holds over 5 years of experience as an adjunct instructor and facilitates the learning of students within GSSW and the Department of Social Work at Metropolitan State University of Denver. When she is not galavanting the halls of academia, Olivia can be found nurturing relationships and pouring into her creative practice. They also curate the literary zine, Intersections, an avenue to amplify counternarratives and capture the active reimagining of possibilities beyond the confines of oppressive realities.
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Research Interests/Areas of Emphasis
Qualitative and quantitative community-engaged participatory research in the following areas:
Black LGBTQIA+ People & Experiences
Black Feminisms and Intersectionality
Racial Healing Justice
Belonging & Social Connectedness
Healing & Liberatory Praxis
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Dissertation
Beyond Liminality: A Grounded Theory Reorientation to Black LGBTQIA+ Sense of Belonging Centering Sovereignty
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Favorite Local Bipoc-Owned Business
- Alchemy Ritual Goods 2700 Arapahoe St, Ste 101 Denver, CO 80205
Sarah Ann Sullivan
Sarah Ann Sullivan (she/they) is a doctoral candidate that focuses on weight stigma, eating disorders, and body image. Weight stigma is a highly prevalent and often overlooked social problem with deleterious consequences for people’s health (e.g., treatment delay, lower quality care) and mental health (e.g., diminished well-being, disordered eating). While weight stigma is well-established as a social justice issue with harmful consequences, research about potential solutions is still in the early stages of development. Sarah’s work primarily centers interventions to reduce weight stigma, which they have facilitated among MSW students, foster parents, medical students, and MSW interns, and studied the impacts of these interventions with MSW and medical students. Sarah has an MA in Sociology from the University of Missouri and brings a sociological, theoretically informed lens to their work. She has also earned BAs in Psychology and Sociology from Duquesne University.
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Research interests/Areas of emphasis
Weight stigma interventions
Cultural perceptions of health
Health disparities and stigma
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Dissertation title
Educating towards Weight-Inclusivity: A Multi-Method Exploration of Weight Stigma Interventions
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Favorite Local Bipoc-Owned Small Business
- Migas Coffee 2590 Walnut St Denver, CO 80205
