Cecilia De Boeck

Cecilia De Boeck is a Refugee Case Manager at HIAS Pennsylvania. She grew up in Iowa City, Iowa and graduated from Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, MI with a major in International & Area Studies, her area of focus being Latin America, and a minor in Anthropology/Sociology. Since graduating in 2017, Cecilia has mostly worked in education. She was a paraeducator at an elementary school, the same one she attended in Iowa City (full circle!), working one-on-one with students in a modified classroom. Additionally, she taught at a nature immersion school and most recently, pre-COVID, taught English in Armenia.

Cecilia structured most of her college career around refugee resettlement, participating in various internships and leading a student organization, Refugee Outreach Collective, that aimed to connect Kalamazoo College students with refugee populations in Kalamazoo. Her senior thesis focused on refugee resettlement in the United States, specifically researching how the long-term integration of refugees is achieved. Something that Cecilia talked a lot about in her thesis is the fact that integration is a two-way street, the receiving community playing a salient role in welcoming and assisting refugees as they adjust to life in a new country. She is incredibly grateful for the opportunity to assist in that portion of the integration process.

Besides her professional and academic interests, Cecilia loves to cook, forage, and sift through thrift stores for vintage clothes/glassware.