Dr. Christiana Best-Giacomini (Christiana Best-Giacomini)

Biographical information

Dr. Christiana Best-Giacomini is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Work and Equitable Community Practice at the University of Saint Joseph in West Hartford, Connecticut. She holds a Ph.D. in Social Welfare and is a licensed social worker. She is the host and creator of the podcast Inside Out/Outside In, which facilitates conversations between academia and its communities with the aim of building bridges and amplifying the voices of marginalized groups. She served as Vice President of the New York City (NYC) chapter of the National Association of Social Workers from 2014-2019, where she currently co-chairs the Immigration and Global Social Work Committee. Prior to transitioning to academia full-time, Dr. Best worked in the NYC child welfare system and taught as an adjunct lecturer at the City University of New York.

Dr. Best and her colleagues recently completed a nationwide research project entitled Microaggression in the Caribbean Diaspora. The study examined how racial and ethnic identification by Caribbean and Central American immigrants relates to experiences of daily racial microaggressions in the work place.

Dr. Best’s scholarship focuses on issues related to race and racism, immigration and child welfare. In 2019-2020, she published four op-eds in the Hartford Courant, a journal article, I Too Am DACA: Awakened Childhood Memories, and two essays, Hate Crimes on College Campuses and in Higher Education Spaces and Closing the door on Transnational Parenting: A letter to my immigrant mother. In 2017, Dr. Best wrote the chapter “Transnational Parenting: The Hidden Costs of the Search for a Better Life,” in the book, Narrative in Social Work Practice: The Power and Possibility of Story.

Also, in 2017, Dr. Best curated the Historical Child Welfare Timeline: A Transformational Experience, an exhibit that chronicles 200 years of inequities in U. S. child welfare policies, procedures, and practices.