Ruijie Ma, MSW (she/her), is a doctoral student at the University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work. She received a Bachelor’s degree in Law from the Central China Normal University and her MSW from the University of Georgia. Before her doctoral studies, Ruijie worked at the largest social work organization in central China, where she served as a case manager for a government-funded initiative supporting diaspora orphans and their foster families in both the provincial capital and surrounding rural areas. She also collaborated with grassroots organizations to launch Social-Emotional Learning-oriented peer support programs for children in migrant labor communities. Additionally, she provided individual and family counseling to Asian adoptees and their transracial and intercountry families, drawing on the Relational-Cultural Therapy (RCT) model, also grounded in feminist principles.
Ruijie’s research interests focus on two primary directions: 1) examining how the intersection of poverty, immigration, and race/ethnicity shapes the behavioral health trajectories of marginalized youth in low-income and adverse environments; and 2) assessing the effectiveness of community-based interventions in fostering resilience, enhancing child well-being and flourishing, and mitigating the risk of child maltreatment. Her work also seeks to uncover socioeconomic and structural determinants of the child welfare field through macro-level data analysis and the evaluation of financial assistance programs. From a global perspective, she advocates for the establishment of systematic child maltreatment screening and protection mechanisms in China, with an emphasis on evaluating child welfare service delivery through a gender equity lens.
