Tanzilya Oren, Education Advisor and Legal Navigator
Tanzilya Oren, LMSW, Ph.D., is an education adviser at RIF Asylum Support. She provides guidance to asylum seekers looking to continue their education in the United States. She helps with finding appropriate courses, from English as Second Language, High School Equivalency (HSE) and short-term professional courses to admission processes and funding for colleges and Universities. After a career in civil society development abroad, in Uzbekistan and South Africa, since 2010 she has worked in New York in the area of immigrant services.
She was certified as a Career Counselor at the NYS Department of Labor’s (DOL) where she provided career services to immigrant workers and job seekers in the pilot Immigrant Workforce Project.
At DOL, she launched the Immigrant Job Club, facilitated the We Are New York sessions, and built partnerships with immigrant-serving agencies across New York City. Later, she helped launch and develop the Andrew Romay New Immigrant Center (ARNIC) at the English-Speaking Union of the United States.
She was an active member of the advisory group on social work education at the International Movement ATD Fourth World, and of the Community Collaborative Committee at the New York University (NYU) English Language Institute’s Collaborative for New Immigrant Education (CNIE). She holds a Ph.D. from Fordham University, a master’s degree in social work from Columbia University, and a combined MA/BA in Teaching and English from Samarkand University.
Tanzilya is a social work educator and a Ph.D. researcher. She researches immigrant and refugee policies, including access to higher education and advocacy of asylum seekers. Her recent publications include:
Oren, T. (2023). Social work practice with asylum seekers. In N. Murakami, & M. Akilova (Eds.), Integrative Social Work Practice with Refugees, Asylum Seekers, and Forcibly Displaced Persons: Springer. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-12600-0_16
Popescu, M., Oren, T. & Tripathi, S. (2022). Asylum seekers in higher education in the U.S.: Emerging challenges and potential solutions. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, 26(2), 165-180 https://ojs01.galib.uga.edu/jheoe/article/view/2613
Łukasiewicz, K., Oren, T., & Tripathi, S. (2021). Local welfare system response to refugees: between innovations, efficiency, and creating unequal opportunities. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 1-21. doi:10.1080/1369183X.2021.1905506.
Oren, T., & Gorshkov, A. (2021). Lived experiences of recent Russian-speaking LGBT+ immigrants in the United States: An interpretive phenomenological analysis. Journal of LGBTQ Issues in Counseling. doi:10.1080/15538605.2021.1914278.