The Graduate School

Dakari Quimby

While studying for his doctoral degree, Dakari Quimby has spent much of his time taking his education to the streets of Chicago to make a difference in the community.

Much of his studies and efforts focus on empowering systemically marginalized youth, families, and communities of color, especially in Chicago, in the areas of health, safety, education, and treatment. As a member of the Risk and Resilience psychology lab, Quimby has spent the past five years helping to build violence prevention interventions within Black and Latino communities on the South and West sides of Chicago.

“Through this experience, I have become more familiar with the profound neglect and systemic marginalization perpetrated by social intuitions towards these communities,” he says. “However, I have also been privileged to get to know the extensive strength, resilience, and other internal resources among the youth, families, and community leaders residing in these neighborhoods.”

Quimby, a sixth year as a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology, successfully defended his dissertation last August, titled The Experience of Mentors in a Cross-Age Peer Mentoring Program: Exploring The Helper Theory Principle. He has also kept busy serving in several roles in trauma and resilience-based mental health treatment and therapy for youth and their families. Recently, he received funding to transfer the operation of a cross-age peer mentoring program from Loyola staff to community leaders through the Chicago Fund for Safe and Peaceful Communities.

Through his time at Loyola, Quimby says it has been the influence of mentors like psychology professor Maryse Richards that has helped him learn how to put his education into action to help others.

“I have witnessed Dr. Richards and other like-minded students and staff on the Risk and Resilience team take an active role in fostering change through activities like attending rallies for racial justice, supporting businesses in Black communities, and being critically conscious consumers.

“Being surrounded by these individuals has further established my realization that challenging systemic discrimination goes beyond academic settings and must be infused into my roles as a friend, mentor, constituent, professional, (and) family member.”