Debalina Chatterjee is The Carying Place’s Senior Family Support Specialist working focused on Graduate & Children’s Programs.

Debalina holds a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and 9 years of life science research experience between academia and industry. She was a regular children’s program volunteer in 2016-2017 for The Carying Place’s Thursday night program, especially working with teenagers. During this time, she began to develop a passion for working with youth and underprivileged populations in our community. These new interests lead her to reconsider her engineering career path and seek out an internship opportunity with The Children’s Coordinator here at The Carying Place. She thoroughly enjoyed the experience; by planning and participating in each activity tailored for the children, she continued to use the opportunity to inspire and encourage them by sharing her own stories of struggles and hardships and how she overcame them, and most importantly made each child feel cared for and loved.

Debalina joined The Carying Place as staff in January of 2018. As the Children’s Program Specialist, Debalina continues to pursue her goal of learning more about the systems in society that have contributed to the needs of youth experiencing homelessness in our community. She is determined to be more involved in mitigating those challenges. Also as the Graduate Program Specialist, Debalina continues to motivate adult graduate family members to maintain skills learned while in our housing, reach for debt-freedom, improve employment, and become successful homeowners when homeownership is desired.