Dr. Laura Ruth Johnson has spent over 25 years observing the lives, struggles and triumphs of Pregnant & Parenting Youth (PPY) in Chicago. Johnson previously served as director of the Family Literacy Center, a program of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center located in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood. She researches the experiences and beliefs of Latinx and African American PPY; mentorship, advocacy, and school-based support programs for PPY; and youth civic engagement within minority communities. Her more recent work examines the role of grassroots, community knowledge in the development of collaborative university-community partnerships. She is also the author of “Community-based Qualitative Research: Approaches for Education and the Social Sciences” (2017).