About
Hey friend is an informational website for you to access resources on stress management, mindfulness, employment, resume writing, interviewing, practicing English, and a custom conversational chatbot. Happy browsing!
Contact
For any questions on the project, please contact study lead, Dr. Abha Rai: arai4@luc.edu
Team
Abha Rai
Principal Investigator
Dr. Abha Rai is an internationally recognized community-based scholar with over 15 years of experience advancing social work practice and research across global contexts. Guided by Jesuit values of cura personalis (care for the whole person), her work centers on promoting mental health outcomes & well-being for excluded groups, with a particular focus on addressing gender-based violence. Dr. Rai’s recent projects integrate wearable technologies and artificial intelligence into mental health & well-being interventions.
Kristen Ravi
Co-Principal Investigator
Kristen Ravi, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the College of Social Work at the University of Tennessee. She is also a licensed master social worker with experience working with children and families in urban and rural environments. Her research focuses on healthy relationships with an emphasis on intimate partner violence (IPV) and supporting parent-child relationships. Her primary focus is on children’s exposure to parental IPV and other adverse childhood experiences and their proximal and distal social, mental health, and academic outcomes using interdisciplinary team science. More recently, Dr. Ravi has expanded the focus of her research to advance knowledge related to protective factors in parent-child relationships and nature engagement.
George K. Thiruvathukal
Co-Principal Investigator
George K. Thiruvathukal is Full Professor of Computer Science and the Department Chairperson at Loyola University Chicago. His current work addresses software engineering for scienctific software (research software) and machine learning, low-power computer vision, computational neuroscience, human-centered computation, and interdisciplinary thinking.
Maria Vidal de Haymes
Co-Principal Investigator
Dr. Vidal de Haymes teaches courses in the areas of social welfare policy and migration studies. She has been the PI on a number of federal and international grants and authored publications concerning migration, poverty and inequality, child welfare, and social work education.
Swarnali Banerjee
Co-Principal Investigator
Dr. Swarnali Banerjee received her Ph.D. from the Department of Statistics, University of Connecticut in 2014. She served as a tenure-track assistant professor at the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Old Dominion University, 2014–2016. Previously in India, she received her Bachelor’s degree in statistics from University of Calcutta and M.Stat degree from the Indian Statistical Institute. She joined Loyola University in 2016. Her research interests include analyzing count data in ecology and different areas of health sciences, sequential analysis and statistics in bioinformatics.
Margaret Delaney
Co-Principal Investigator
Margaret Delaney, EdD, APRN, PCPNP-BC, joined Loyola University Chicago in 2019, where she also earned her BSN. She is a certified pediatric nurse practitioner with a Doctor of Education in Higher Education and Organizational Change. Her research focuses on nursing student success, retention, health equity in nursing ethics, and community health, with numerous publications and presentations in these areas. She is president of the Alpha Beta Chapter of Sigma Theta Tau and is a member of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners and the American Nurses Association. She has contributed to several HRSA grant teams focused on integrating social determinants of health into the nursing curriculum and enhancing diversity in the profession. Additionally, she has led several international nursing ethics courses in Rome and service immersion trips to Pine Ridge, SD, providing care for the indigenous Lakota community.
Neil Klingensmith
Co-Principal Investigator
Neil Klingensmith is an assistant professor in the department of Computer Science at Loyola University Chicago. Neil leads the Loyola Security Lab in the Department of Computer Science which conducts research in Mobile and IoT software and operating systems; digital privacy; and signal processing on resource-constrained systems. He has worked at several startups, including as a founder and CEO of Emonix, Inc. from 2014-2017. Emonix was a spinoff of Neil’s graduate research at UW Madison and produced building management controls for water quality systems in large commercial and industrial buildings. He holds a Ph.D. (2019), MS (2016), and BS (2010) all in Computer Engineering from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, WI.
Eric Klingensmith
Developer
Eric is a developer and research scientist with expertise in React, PostgreSQL, Node.js, and secure API integrations. He began his career in the pharmaceutical industry, leading scientific development and validation projects, guiding teams of 20+ analysts, serving as client liaison, and authoring GMP-compliant documentation. More recently, he has been transitioning his skills toward a computer science focus, developing workflow automations to streamline operations and building server-side applications. Outside of work, Eric enjoys hiking, traveling, running, soccer, and film.
Maddie Juarez
Developer
Maddie Juarez is a fourth-year undergraduate student and research assistant at Loyola University Chicago studying Computer Science and Statistics. Her interests include research in machine learning, software development, and initiatives for social good.
Danny Olweean
Community Agency Lead Staff
Danny runs the Welcome Center Trellus. He graduated from Michigan State University in 2021 with a degree in Social Policy, and moved to Chicago that fall. He has been with Trellus since January of 2024, originally working as a case manager. In his time at Trellus, he has brought his deep passion for community building and advocacy to the specialized cases found in the Welcome Center. If you ever find yourself or a loved one in need of support, please reach out to the Trellus office and we will see what solutions we can offer.
Adriana Valerio
Community Agency Support Staff
Adrianna graduated from Albion College in Michigan in 2022 and began her career with Catholic Migration Services in Queens, New York, assisting clients with their naturalization process under attorney supervision. In 2023, she returned to her hometown of Chicago and now works as a case manager at Trellus, supporting vulnerable communities. In this role, she develops comprehensive, individualized plans to help set clients up for long-term success. Her work is grounded in a passion for advocacy and community support.