Gruber Fellows and Projects

The Gruber Fellowships in Global Justice and Women's Rights are post-graduate work fellowships that allow recent graduates (within three years) of Yale graduate and professional schools to spend a year working on issues of relevance to the fields of global justice and/or women's rights. Gruber Fellows have undertaken projects all over the world, including Zimbabwe, China, Antigua and Barbuda, the United States, Myanmar/Burma, and the UK.

2023-24 PETER AND PATRICIA GRUBER FELLOWS IN GLOBAL

JUSTICE AND WOMEN’S RIGHTS

The Gruber Program for Global Justice and Women’s Rights at Yale Law School is proud to announce the 2023-2024 Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellows in Global Justice and Women’s Rights. Congratulations to Isabelle Barnard (YLS ’23), Erin Gilmer (YSPH ’23), Alaa Hajyahia (YLS ’22), Jessica Quinter (YLS ’23), and Rachael Stryer (YLS ’22). Each fellow has developed a yearlong project in collaboration with a host organization that aims to advance justice and human rights. The Gruber Program Fellowships are a university-wide program, established to support projects and graduates and recent alums from all YLS graduate and professional schools.

Isabelle Barnard (YLS‘23)

Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Women’s Rights

Isabelle Barnard will spend their fellowship year with the Gender Equality Law Center in Brooklyn, New York. Isabelle will advance the workplace rights of pregnant workers, parents, and caregivers in New York City, with a particular focus on low-wage and immigrant workers. Isabelle's project will involve community education, direct representation, and policy advocacy—all aimed at supporting pregnant and caregiving workers as they combat pregnancy and care giver discrimination and defend their rights at work. Isabelle holds BAs in Anthropology and Spanish from Stanford University. Before law school, they worked for four years at migrant rights organization Justice in Motion, promoting access to justice across borders for migrant workers and asylum seekers. In law school, they have spent five joyful semesters with Yale's Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic. They have also served as the co-president of Trans@YLS, the co-Academic Chair of Out Laws, and a Forum editor for the Yale Law Journal.

Erin Gilmer (YSPH ’23)

Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Global Justice

Erin Gilmer will partner with the American College of Nurse Midwives (ACNM) and their global outreach program to strengthen midwifery leadership in conflict-affected and fragile settings. Erin will work with the ACNM to design, implement, and evaluate a leadership development curriculum tailored to midwives working in these complex contexts. She will also develop a toolkit to guide replication of the curriculum. Before coming to the Yale School of Public Health, Erin worked for several years as a certified nurse-midwife with immigrant and refugee women.

At Yale, her work has focused on global maternal and reproductive health, including research on successful midwifery scale-up initiatives and supporting the psychosocial wellbeing of pregnant women and midwives in humanitarian contexts. She also volunteers locally with Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services (IRIS) and is an avid language-learner. Erin is a graduate of Indiana University and Seattle University.

Alaa Hajyahia (YLS ’22)

Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Women’s Rights

Alaa Hajyahia will work with Assiwar, a Palestinian feminist organization with 30 years of expertise in advancing the status of Palestinian women in Israel, to launch a Palestinian feminist lab (Pal-Lab). The goal of Pal-Lab is to develop economic-based solutions to domestic violence sensitive to the lived experiences of Palestinian women in Israel, where the main paradigm of intervention for violence and crimes revolves mainly around criminalization and resorting to the Israeli criminal justice system– that is, the carceral state. Pal-Lab's approach instead suggests viewing violence also as an economic problem structured by global injustices and precarious market practices in a globalized economy.

Alaa obtained her LL.M. degree in 2022 from Yale Law School, where she is completing her J.S.D. degree. Currently, Alaa is pursuing a Ph.D. in social anthropology at Cambridge University (King’s college) as a Cambridge Gates Scholar. Drawing on both ethnographic and historical methods, Alaa’s academic interests include legal theory, international law, criminal law and punishment, constitutional law, decolonial and postcolonial thoughts, knowledge production, and law and anthropology. In 2022, Alaa recieved the Audre Rapoport Prize for Scholarship on Gender and Human Rights as well as the Yale Law Women Critical Race Theory Award for intellectual labor on Race, gender and human rights.

Jessica Quinter (YLS ’23)

Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Women’s Rights

Jessica will be working at the Reproductive Freedom Project of the American Civil Liberties Union to preserve and expand access to abortion after Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. She will use strategic state and federal litigation to directly challenge abortion bans, force the creation of more accommodating exceptions, prevent states from enforcing new restrictions on people’s ability to access abortion care outside their home states, and stymie fetal personhood efforts.

At Yale Law School, Jessica was a student leader and clinic practitioner with the Reproductive Rights and Justice Project and the HAVEN Medical-Legal Partnership. She is a co-author of Judicial Bypass and Parental Rights After Dobbs, 132 Yale L.J. (forthcoming 2023). Prior to coming to law school, Jessica worked as a paralegal in the litigation department at Planned Parenthood Federation of America. She holds an A.B. from Princeton University.

Rachael Stryer (YLS ’22)

Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Global Justice

Rachael Stryer will work with Unemployed Workers United (UWU) to provide otherwise-unavailable support to UWU's worker-led campaign to improve conditions for temporary workers, with a focus on temp work in the hospitality, warehouse, and construction sectors in Houston and Nashville. UWU is a women- and immigrant-led movement founded in the wake of the COVID- 19 crisis to support vulnerable low-wage workers; the vast majority of those they serve are women and immigrants who are particularly exposed to work-place exploitation. The aim of Rachael’s project is to increase worker capacity by (1) providing otherwise unavailable legal support to ensure the quality and enforceability of UWU’s policy victories; and (2) bringing strategic administrative complaints (and, potentially, litigation) to build public attention and anchor organizing efforts. Her project was developed with guidance from UWU’s Organizing Department and will continue to evolve in conversation with organizers, attorneys, and partners.

Rachael is currently finishing up her clerkship with the Honorable Keith Ellison, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. At Yale, Rachael was the Forums Editor for the Yale Journal of International Law, a Submission Editor for the Yale Journal of Law & Feminism, and a Student Director of the Lowenstein Human Rights Clinic.

The Gruber Program for Global Justice and Women’s Rights at Yale Law School is proud to announce the 2022-2023 Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellows in Global Justice and Women’s Rights. Congratulations to Lauren Ashbrook (YSE ’22), Shantrice King (YSN ’22), Zain Lakhani (YLS ’22), Laura Pappalardo (YSA ’22), and Chelsea Thompson (YLS ’22). Each fellow has developed a yearlong project in collaboration with a host organization that aims to advance justice and human rights.

Lauren Ashbrook (YSE ’22)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Global Justice

Lauren Ashbrook will work with Restauremos el Colorado, based in Mexicali, Baja California, to promote water justice in the Colorado River Delta. With Mexicali Valley farmers, she will design and launch water conservation projects that support the implementation of a binational water-sharing agreement between the United States and Mexico. Her goals are to facilitate a more equitable distribution of water between the two nations, as well as between farmers and local communities who have – for decades – lived in a dry delta. As a Master of Environmental Management at the Yale School of the Environment, Lauren’s research focused on soil health, climate adaptation, and rural livelihoods. Dedicated to climate change communication, she held leadership roles at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and SAGE Magazine. Before graduate school, Lauren spent several years working with farmers across the Midwest and Mid-South. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology from Yale College.

Shantrice King (YSN ’22)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Women’s Rights

Shantrice King will be collaborating with Centre de Sante Communautaire – Medine (CSCom-Medine) to build a postpartum care cooperative amongst newly graduated midwives in Segou, Mali. At CSCom-Medine, Shantrice will work with Senior midwives to design a postpartum care training for midwives and deliver the training to young midwives. She will also provide logistical support to new midwives on matters concerning forming a cooperative. At Yale, Shantrice studied Midwifery and Women's Health at Yale's School of Nursing. Outside of the classroom, she volunteered as a reproductive healthcare provider at Haven Free Clinic and served as a Graduate Assistant at the Afro-American Cultural Center at Yale. Shantrice received a B.A in Women and Gender Studies from Carleton College and upon graduating, had the distinct honor of 3 years in community with Malian women in Paris doing research on Malian women's reproductive lives and beliefs about family. She is excited to return to the Malian community as a reproductive healthcare provider.

Zain Lakhani (YLS ’22)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Women’s Rights

Zain Lakhani will work at the White House Gender Policy Council on the intersection of gender-based violence and economic security, with a focus on advancing the economic security of low-income women workers, including those in the care sector. She will also work on the Administration’s broader efforts to prevent and respond to human trafficking and its disproportionate impacts on women and girls, people of color, and other underserved populations. At Yale Law School, Zain worked with the Global Health and Justice Partnership to advance the civil rights of marginalized communities within New Haven. She also served as an Editor for the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, and member of the Reproductive Rights and Justice Clinic. She holds a PhD in History from the University of Pennsylvania, and writes primarily in the field of gender, migration, and U.S. policy.

Laura Pappalardo (YSA ’22)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Global Justice

Laura Pappalardo will be working with the Chão Coletivo research platform, a research collective formed by non-Indigenous and Guarani researchers and architects coordinated by Professor Glória Kok at Escola da Cidade, in São Paulo, to improve the housing quality in the Pyau village, one of the six Guarani villages located at the foot of Jaraguá Peak. The project will research and document the traditional construction techniques of the Guarani Mbya, map the Pyau village housing conditions and the need for basic infrastructure like sanitation and access to water; provide technical guidance about the São Paulo zoning laws, creating a document as an instrument of negotiation with the city of São Paulo on how zoning laws can prevent further real estate expansion upon the Jaraguá Indigenous Land; and build two housing prototypes to launch a fundraising campaign to renew the other houses at the Pyau village.

Laura holds a BA in Architecture and Urbanism from Escola da Cidade (São Paulo, 2017) and a Master of Environmental Design from Yale School of Architecture (2021). With her master’s thesis: “Mapping Grounds for Reparations in Jaraguá Peak” she has been using design and mapping as tools for broadening public engagement in Indigenous land rights and environmental justice initiatives in São Paulo. As an architect and researcher, Laura collaborates with interdisciplinary groups to rethink environmental justice in the built environment. She is currently a member of the Chão Coletivo research collective, at Escola da Cidade in São Paulo, with whom she will be working during the Gruber Fellowship.

Chelsea Thompson (YLS ’22)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Women’s Rights

Chelsea Thompson is a Gruber Fellow and Liman Affiliate. She will spend her fellowship year on the direct services team of A Better Balance, in New York City, where she will provide direct representation to low-wage workers who face discrimination because of caregiving responsibilities. Her fellowship will include educating workers about their rights as caregivers and advancing this developing area of employment law by supporting A Better Balance’s policy advocacy. Chelsea received a B.A. in political science from Scripps College. Prior to coming to law school, she worked in the tech industry. At Yale Law School, she is a student leader and clinic practitioner with the Reproductive Rights and Justice Project. She also served as the Editor in Chief of the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism.

The Gruber Program for Global Justice and Women’s Rights at Yale Law School is proud to announce the 2021-2022 Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellows in Global Justice and Women’s Rights. Congratulations to Mollie Berkovitz (YLS ’21), Kyla Eastling (YLS ’21), Rhoda Hassan (YLS ’19), Cara Newlon (YLS ’21), Jorge Nieto Jimenez (FES ’20), and Krista Shennum (FES ’21). Each fellow has developed a yearlong project in collaboration with a host organization that aims to advance justice and human rights.

Mollie Berkovitz (YLS ’21)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Women’s Rights

With Public Justice Students’ Civil Rights Project, Mollie Berkowitz will work to establish that schools must address dating violence as a form of sex-based harassment under Title IX, by developing impact litigation on behalf of student-victims of dating violence. Many schools and courts still fail to recognize that students’ experiences of dating violence merit the heightened institutional response called for by Title IX. Through her fellowship, Mollie aims to secure a civil remedy for student-victims of dating violence and to incentivize schools to change their policies and practices to be more responsive to the needs of these student-survivors.

At Yale, Mollie was a member of the Veterans’ Legal Services Clinic and the Reproductive Rights and Justice Project. She also served as a co-chair of the Law School’s Title IX Working Group. She is a graduate of the University of Michigan.

Kyla Eastling (YLS ’21)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Women’s Rights

Kyla Eastling will be working at the Reproductive Freedom Project of the American Civil Liberties Union to develop a litigation strategy challenging state abortion restrictions and defending theWhole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedtbalancing standard. Through coordinated impact litigation and coalition building, she will work to reduce the legal barriers facing marginalized communities and all people seeking abortion. Moreover, the project will involve strengthening legal protections in “haven states,” where geographic proximity to states hostile to abortion will create an influx of patients traveling from out of state to access care.

At YLS, Kyla participated in the Veterans Legal Services Clinic, where her work focused on gender and racial equity in the military service academies and securing benefits for veterans who served on Guam. She was also an executive board member for the Native American Law Student Association and a Notes and Comments Editor for the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism. Kyla received her B.A. from Claremont McKenna College in Philosophy, Politics, & Economics.

Rhoda Hassan (YLS ’19)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Women’s Rights

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Rhoda Hassan will collaborate with Instituto de las Mujeres en la Migración (IMUMI) and Otros Dreams en Acción (ODA) to advocate for migrant women in Mexico City, Mexico. At IMUMI, Rhoda will provide legal aid to migrant women and research the impact of migration on their lives, including challenges arising from the intersectionality of gender, ethnicity, and race. At ODA, Rhoda will focus on community organizing efforts with individuals who were forced to move from the United States to Mexico due to deportation or the threat of deportation. At Yale, Rhoda served as President of the Black Law Students Association, was a member of the Community and Economic Development Clinic and was an Articles Editor for the Yale Journal of International Law. Rhoda received her B.A. in Global Studies from Arizona State University.

Carolyn Lipp (YLS ’18)*
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Global Justice

Carolyn Lipp will work with the Centre for Justice Innovation, located in England, on developing and expanding the Family Drug and Alcohol Court (“FDAC”) model. FDAC offers an alternative to traditional adversarial care proceedings based on principles of therapeutic jurisprudence and problem-solving justice. In the FDAC model, a multi-disciplinary team, consisting of social workers and substance use/mental health specialists, works collaboratively with parents from the outset of the case to address the underlying concerns that led their children into care and supports parents in safely reunifying with their children. Carolyn will be part of a national partnership team expanding the FDAC model to new sites and will create a judicial toolkit to train new and existing FDAC judges.

Since graduating from Yale Law School in 2018, Carolyn has worked as a Staff Attorney in the Family Defense Practice at Brooklyn Defender Services. While in law school, she participated in the Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic, the Ethics Bureau Clinic, and the Center for Children’s Advocacy Medical-Legal Partnership. She graduated from Wesleyan University with a B.A. in History.

* Note: Fellowship awarded in 2020-2021 but deferred to 2021-22 due to COVID-19 travel restrictions.

Cara Newlon (YLS ’21)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Women’s Rights

Cara Newlon will work with Public Counsel Los Angeles to fight predatory on-call scheduling through impact litigation, policy advocacy, and communication. Abusive “just in time scheduling”— where employers set tentative work schedules and finalize them last-minute to maximize revenue —disproportionately harms women caregivers. During her fellowship year, Cara will combine her unique background in both legal and policy advocacy in workers’ rights and women’s rights to launch a renewed push for a fair workweek in Los Angeles and California.

At Yale Law School, Cara co-chaired the Title IX Working Group, and was a clinical student in the Veterans Legal Services Clinic, the San Francisco Affirmative Litigation Project, and the Connecticut Parentage Act Coalition. Cara also volunteered with the Biden-Harris Women & Families Policy Committee, helping draft gender justice policies for the first months of the administration, and interned with TIME’S UP. Before coming to law school, Cara was a communications consultant at BerlinRosen Public Affairs, where she helped strategize and manage political campaigns for major labor unions, nonprofits, and public interest law firms. Cara graduated magna cum laude with honors from Brown University.

Jorge Nieto Jimenez (FES ’20)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Global Justice

Jorge is partnering with Energy Action Partners, a non-profit organization based in Malaysia that facilitates community participation in the design of mini-grids for energy access through the Community Energy Toolkit (COMET), a software that creates interactive simulations of mini-grids. Jorge will participate in the development of a new version of the workshops where COMET is deployed and will design and implement an impact evaluation strategy. Jorge considers himself a professional of international cooperation and an apprentice ethnographer, learning from everyone around him. His formal qualifications include a Master of Environmental Science from Yale University and a Licenciatura (Bachelor´s degree) in international Relations from El Colegio de México (The College of Mexico). During his time at Yale, Jorge conducted independent research on the persistence of solid-fuel cooking in Pinlaung Township, Myanmar, and on the obstacles faced by small hydropower operations in Connecticut and Massachusetts in the United States.

Before coming to Yale, Jorge worked for three years as advisor of the General Director at CONACYT, the Mexican federal science and technology agency. Originally from Mexico City, Jorge is devoted to advance access to electricity across the world, as well as cooperation and mutual understanding between Southeast Asia and Latin America.

Krista Shennum (FES ’21)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Global Justice

Krista Shennum will work with Human Rights Watch (HRW) to investigate human rights abuses associated with plastic waste exported from the Global North to the Global South. Not only do plasticwaste mismanagement cause significant human rights harms, the production and incineration of plastic also contributes to climate change. At HRW, Krista will advocate for measures to remedy the human rights harms caused by poor handling of plastic waste, for regulations aimed at improving waste management and reducing human rights harms, and for sustainable practices that minimize the amount of plastic waste generated and related greenhouse gas emissions.

As a Master of Environmental Management student at YSE, Krista was a leader of the Climate Change Science and Solutions Learning Community, the Yale Environmental Women Student Interest Group, and chair of the Yale Oceans and Climate Conference. Prior to attending Yale, Krista worked with grassroots environmental and human rights advocates in 80 countries to protect ecosystems and communities from environmental abuses. She graduated from the University of Oregon with a B.S. in Environmental Science and International Studies.

The Gruber Program for Global Justice and Women’s Rights at Yale Law School is proud to announce the 2020-2021 Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellows in Global Justice and Women’s Rights. Congratulations to Rachel Brase (YSPH ’20), Hannah Hussey (YLS ’20), Carolyn Lipp (YLS ’18), and Cecil Tengatenga (YDS ’20). Each fellow has developed a yearlong project in collaboration with a host organization that aims to advance justice and human rights.

Rachel Brase (YSPH ’20)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Women’s Rights

Rachel Brase is partnering with Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand, developing a rights-based intervention to improve the health of migrant women living on the Thai-Laos border. She is a graduating Master of Public Health student in the Social and Behavioral Sciences Department, where she is also a second-year departmental representative. As an MPH student, Rachel has conducted research on the health experiences of female migrant workers in Thailand.

At Yale, Rachel also works with the Health Justice Lab in YSM to analyze the impact of community firearm violence in New Haven. Rachel is also an executive board member for the Emerging Majority Students Association at YSPH, where she focuses on developing events and resources to support students of color.

She also spends her time volunteering with the Neighborhood Health Project, to provide free regular blood glucose and blood pressure checks to low-income and poor New Haven residents.

Before coming to Yale, Rachel received her Bachelor of Public Health and a certificate in Health Communication from the University of Kentucky. She would like to thank her numerous mentors, teachers, colleagues, and community members for teaching, inspiring, and supporting her.

Hannah Hussey (YLS ’20)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Global Justice

Hannah Hussey will work at the LGBTQ Law Project of the New York Legal Assistance Group. Her fellowship will combat economic insecurity for LGBTQ youth through knowledge building, direct representation, and policy advocacy. Recognizing that youth often have multiple, overlapping legal needs, the project will address several areas with the goal of increasing stability for LGBTQ young people, with an emphasis on education, immigration, name changes, and public benefits.

At YLS, Hannah was the co-president of OutLaws and participated in the New Haven Legal Assistance Immigrant Rights Clinic, the Global Health Justice Partnership, and a Medical-Legal Partnership working with transgender youth.

Prior to law school, she worked on LGBTQ youth policy in Massachusetts and at the federal level.

Hannah received her B.A. from Tufts University in Sociology and Women's Studies.

Carolyn Lipp (YLS ’18) *
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Global Justice

* Fellowship has been deferred to 2021-22 due to COVID-19 travel restrictions.

Cecil James Tengatenga (YDS ’20)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Global Justice

Cecil James Tengatenga will be working with Project ECHO hub at the College of Transfiguration (the College) in Grahamstown, South Africa. To address the escalating HIV epidemic among African youth, his project will pilot an STD ECHO clinic for a health worker training curriculum for the school, prison, college chaplains/ teachers in HIV prevention.

Cecil is a public health professional working at the intersection of faith, science, and sociology. He an experienced implementation policy consultant on social welfare programming for municipal and state governments. His most recent project includes scaling up workforce development, clinical practice transformation and community health education for viral hepatitis in Central and North-East Connecticut among infectious disease community clinics.

At Yale, he is a graduate of the Yale Divinity School, where he was a Global Health Justice Partnership Fellow and completed his clinical pastoral training at St. Francis Hospital (Hartford, CT) and Connecticut Mental Health Center. He attended Trinity College (Hartford, CT ) and is an alumnus of Dartmouth College’s Tuck Business Bridge Program.

He is currently a research associate at the Yale School of Public Health and lives in New Haven with his family.

The Gruber Program for Global Justice and Women’s Rights at Yale Law School is proud to announce the 2019-2020 Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellows in Global Justice and Women’s Rights. Congratulations to Melaina Dyck (F&ES ’19), Jeannia Jia Ni Fu (GSAS/YSPH ’19), Jessica Laird (YLS ’19), Hilary Ledwell (YLS ’17), and Roxana Moussavian (YLS ’19). Each fellow has developed a yearlong project in collaboration with a host organization that aims to advance justice and human rights.

Melaina Dyck (F&ES ’19)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Global Justice

Melaina Dyck will partner with Alianza Arkana—a Peruvian NGO that works with indigenous Shipibo communities—and the Shipibo community of Paoyhan (Loreto, Peru) to bridge government-offered intellectual property rights protections with local efforts to preserve traditional ecological knowledge. The community of Paoyhan has created Farmacia Viva—a forest garden of medicinal plants through which native plant species and traditional medicinal knowledge is kept alive. Globally, such knowledge faces threats of exploitation and appropriation, and Melaina will work with Paoyhan to secure the legal protections offered by the Peruvian government for the knowledge in Farmacia Viva. Central to this project is the co-production of knowledge: Melaina is working together with residents of Paoyhan to ensure that their priorities are met and that knowledge protections are culturally appropriate.

For her Master of Environmental Science at Yale F&ES, Melaina conducted research on banana farming in Shipibo communities in Peru. She also served as co-leader of the Environmental Justice at Yale student interest group and as content director of the 2019 International Society of Tropical Foresters Conference. Melaina received her B.S. in Environmental Science summa cum laude from the University of South Carolina.

Jeannia Jia Ni Fu (GSAS/YSPH ’19)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Women’s Rights

At the Connecticut Bail Fund, Jeannia Jia Ni Fu will support the organizing of Women of Color who find themselves and their families in conflict with the state. In their interactions with state agencies—welfare, education, health, and criminal justice, Women of Color find themselves disproportionately scrutinized, monitored, and their behavior subjected to intrusive control. Nowhere is this more keenly experienced than dealing with police, courts, jails, and prisons. Her collaborative project seeks to amplify the knowledge and power Women of Color bring to bear in every day acts of resistance and solidarity. Facilitated by her project at the Bail Fund, Women of Color will have protected space to share their experiences and build a response to mass incarceration/mass criminalization that centers their visions for justice.

Jeannia works with Justice for Jayson and the Sex Workers and Allies Network. She learned over her time in institutions and her training at the Yale School of Public Health that those working in institutions often do the greatest harm and feel it the least.

She is grateful to tireless advocates, organizers, teachers, and dreamers in New Haven, Connecticut, and beyond for all they have taught her about the power of feeling and community.

Jessica Laird (YLS ’19)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Global Justice

Jessica Laird will work in the Legal Division of the International Committee of the Red Cross as part of its Commentaries Update Unit. These Commentaries are recognized as authoritative interpretations of the Geneva Conventions and their two Additional Protocols, influencing the conduct of international attorneys, government officials, and military personnel on the ground. As part of the team updating the Commentary on the Fourth Geneva Convention, which governs the treatment of civilians in armed conflict, Jessica will focus on those provisions that regulate access to justice in occupied territories and preserve the rights of protected persons.

In addition to serving as the Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Journal of International Law, Jessica assisted in war crimes investigations in the Human Rights and Special Prosecutions section of the Department of Justice while in law school. Before coming to Yale, she taught students about atrocities prevention at the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust and worked on humanitarian and national security issues at the White House. Jessica received her B.A. in Philosophy and Government from Claremont McKenna College.

Hilary Ledwell (YLS ’17)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Women’s Rights

Hilary Ledwell will work with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Center for Liberty on the intersection of religious freedom and nondiscrimination claims. These issues — which have become increasingly salient over the past several years — have implications spanning multiple areas of law, including employment, public accommodations, and health care—especially for reproductive health services. At the ACLU, Hilary will work on a combination of litigation, advocacy, and media engagement.

Before joining Yale Law School’s Class of 2017, Hilary received a B.A. in religion and history from Williams College and an MPhil in Modern European History from the University of Cambridge. At Yale Law School, Hilary was the Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Law Journal and a student fellow at the Information Society Project.

Roxana Moussavian (YLS ’19)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Global Justice

Roxana Moussavian will work with and on behalf of incarcerated immigrants in Northern California to contest the unlawful terms of their detention. Hosted by Pangea Legal Services, she will support immigrants who seek to bring habeas suits in federal court. The writ of habeas corpus is often an individual’s only available legal tool to challenge prolonged immigration detention. The freedom that a successful habeas petition brings can both improve one’s immediate health and livelihood and also bring long-term relief. Research shows that in Northern California, represented noncitizens who are released from detention are nearly three times more likely to win their immigration case than represented noncitizens who remain detained.

At Yale, Roxana was a member of the Criminal Justice Clinic and the Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic. Before law school, Roxana graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, worked as an economic policy advisor and made short documentary films.

The Gruber Program for Global Justice and Women’s Rights at Yale Law School is proud to announce the 2018-2019 Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellows in Global Justice and Women’s Rights. Congratulations to Elizabeth Deutsch (YLS '16), Camilo Huneeus Guzman (FES '18), Laura Portuondo (YLS '18), Victoria Roeck (YLS '18), and Rose Sulentic (YSPH '18). Each fellow has developed a yearlong project in collaboration with a host organization that aims to advance justice and human rights.

Elizabeth Deutsch (YLS '16)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Women’s Rights

Liz Deutsch will work with the American Civil Liberties Union's Reproductive Freedom Project to develop a systematic response to new federal restrictions on reproductive health care. This will involve ongoing and anticipated litigation to ensure abortion rights for marginalized women and girls, as well as other legal challenges to changed federal policies that impact healthcare access and choice.

Liz earned a J.D. from Yale Law School in 2016. She has served as a law clerk to Judge Cornelia T.L. Pillard of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and Judge J. Paul Oetken of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Before law school, Liz received her B.A. from Yale and studied in the U.K. as a Marshall Scholar.

Camilo Huneeus Guzman (FES '18)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Global Justice

Camilo will collaborate with the UNDP-Peru EbA-Lomas Project, located in the informal settlements around the Lomas de Lima, in Lima, Peru. Working together with the community, the municipality and the regional government, Camilo will develop a water and sewage system access plan. It will be one of the very first projects to fully address the water and sanitation needs of the community which incorporates perspectives of women, as well as use smart technologies.

Camilo is a Chilean chemical Industrial Engineer, prior to coming to Yale he worked as an engineer designing wastewater treatment facilities and also as advisor for the Chilean Ministry of Economics and other NGOs in the strengthen of the social economy sector.

Laura Portuondo (YLS '18)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Women’s Rights

Laura Portuondo will spend a year working at the Center for Reproductive Rights as a part of its Judicial Strategy team, strengthening its advocacy by developing and advancing innovative legal narratives. She will focus on combating new and aggressive strategies by which lawmakers, activists, and litigants target women’s reproductive freedom. While her main objective is to create judicially-oriented analyses for legal advocacy, her work will also be designed to help litigators, activists, and academics push broader social narratives and affirm the important values underlying pro-choice activism and lawmaking.

Before joining Yale Law School's Class of 2018, Laura graduated summa cum laude from Yale University with a B.A. in English. At Yale Law School, Laura was a Coker Fellow in constitutional law, member of the Reproductive Rights and Justice Project, and editor of the Yale Law Journal.

Victoria (Tori) Roeck (YLS '18)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Global Justice

Tori Roeck will work with the New York Civil Liberties Union providing legal assistance for detainees with final removal orders in the Buffalo Federal Detention Center in Batavia, New York. While these immigrants have been ordered deported, for a variety of reasons, the government cannot effectuate their removal. The Supreme Court has held that keeping immigrants with deportation orders in custody for more than six months is unconstitutional if their removal is not reasonably foreseeable. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, however, routinely violates this ruling in the Buffalo Federal Detention Center. During her fellowship year, Tori will litigate to secure the release of unlawfully detained immigrants in the detention center, and will develop a know-your-rights presentation for all immigrants there with deportation orders. In law school, Tori was a member of the Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic, through which she worked on complex civil litigation challenging the Muslim Ban, family detention conditions in Texas, and the termination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

She also served as co-director of Yale’s chapter of the International Refugee Assistance Project and board member of the Initiative for Public Interest Law at Yale. Before law school, she received an MSc in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies at the University of Oxford, where she was a member of Linacre College. She received her BA in Classics and Philosophy summa cum laude from the University of Notre Dame.

Rose Sulentic (YSPH '18)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Women’s Rights

Rose Sulentic will be working with the Baylor International Pediatric AIDS Initiative to increase access to maternal and neonatal health services and promote sustainable agriculture. This will be achieved by expanding the existing permaculture program through its Area 25 maternal waiting home (MWH) outside of Lilongwe, Malawi. The existing permaculture program reduces nutritional costs that would otherwise be incurred by the MWH and the patients, most of whom are living well below the national poverty line. Rose will work to bridge the gap between patients’ experiences at the MWH and their re-integration into community life following treatment and provide data on the extent to which patients continue to follow permaculture principles post-discharge.

After graduating from The University of Texas at Austin in 2015, Rose was a member of Texas 4000, a cancer fighting nonprofit, and the Southwest Conservation Corps.

The Gruber Program for Global Justice and Women’s Rights at Yale Law School is proud to announce the 2017-2018 Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellows in Global Justice and Women’s Rights. Congratulations to Nicole Collins (YSPH '17), Edwin Garcia (FES '17), Olivia Horton (YLS '17), Scout Katovich (YLS '17), and Zain Rizvi (YLS '17). Each fellow has developed a yearlong project in collaboration with a host organization that aims to advance global justice and women’s rights. The Gruber Program Fellowships are a university-wide program, established to support projects and graduates and recent alums from all YLS graduate and professional schools.

Nicole Collins (YSPH '17)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Women’s Rights

Nicole Collins will be partnering with the Rosebud Sioux Tribe’s Tribal Health Administration to help restructure its maternal and child health (MCH) program. The Rosebud Sioux Tribe, located in South Dakota, is reforming its health care delivery system by establishing a focused, adaptive, accessible, and comprehensive health care system based on Lakota values. Nicole will assist in the development of MCH policies and procedures, along with a comprehensive curriculum that will educate young mothers on prenatal and postpartum reproductive health.

After graduating from Northwestern University in 2011, Nicole taught middle school science and health at Rosebud’s tribal school for four years through Teach for America. Her master’s thesis examines the reproductive decision-making and sex education experiences of teenage Lakota parents by analyzing interviews she conducted on Rosebud in the summer of 2016 with young mothers and fathers.

Edwin Garcia (FES '17)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Global Justice

Edwin Garcia will be collaborating with Fundación Cordillera Tropical (FTC) and the Ministry of Environment in Ecuador to develop an environmentally sound management plan for a “green” highway for the benefit of the Huangras, an indigenous community living in the Sangay National Park. The highway, the construction of which is set to start in 2017, will provide the community with a way to access drinking water, health services, education; it will also reduce travel time to local markets by as much as eight hours. At the same time, the management plan will take into account both the conservation objectives of the national park and the indigenous and identity rights of the Huangras community.

Prior to his studies at Yale, Edwin co-founded and worked with Mingo Design LLC, a landscape design company. He received a Master of Science in Industrial Engineering from NYU and holds a B.E. from the University of Cuenca.

Olivia Horton (YLS '17)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Women’s Rights

Olivia Horton will provide legal assistance to pregnant and parenting youth seeking welfare benefits, including cash, nutrition, and child care. Hosted by Greater Boston Legal Services’ Welfare Law Unit, she will collaborate with local social services providers to connect with and holistically support parenting youth. Ensuring access to services will promote women' rights and dignity at the most basic level, allowing low-income young people to stabilize and focus on their work, education, health, and the needs of their families. Because parents’ security and health has profound effects on children’s social, emotional, physical, and economic well-being, the goal of this work addresses their needs in tandem with improving long-term outcomes for families as a whole. Olivia’s project will involve trauma-informed direct legal services, community engagement, and ultimately systemic advocacy based on patterns of need.

Before joining Yale Law School’s Class of 2017, Olivia graduated from Wesleyan University with a BA in Government and Anthropology and a Certificate in Social, Cultural, & Critical Theory.

Scout Katovich (YLS '17)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Women’s Rights

Scout Katovich will work with the New York Civil Liberties Union to help rescind nuisance ordinances across New York state that have the effect of harming domestic violence survivors. Nuisance ordinances allow cities to cite a property as a nuisance when it is associated with a certain number of nuisance behaviors, ranging from merely calling the police to assault. Once a property is cited, the owner must abate the nuisance, or face fines or closure. Abatement most often means evicting the tenants associated with the nuisance. Thus, these ordinances disproportionately impact survivors of domestic violence, who risk eviction when they call the police. These ordinances exacerbate survivors’ housing insecurities. During her fellowship year, Scout will engage with various New York cities to repeal nuisance ordinances and to pass laws that that protect the human rights of domestic violence survivors. Scout will also litigate to challenge ordinances in New York that punish domestic violence survivors for calling the police.

At law school Scout has been an active member of the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic and the San Francisco Affirmative Litigation Project. She also served as a board member of Law Students for Reproductive Justice. Prior to attending Yale Law School, Scout spent a year in Paris, France conducting research on urban planning and inequality through a Fulbright Grant and worked for two years at Human Rights Watch on issues related to international criminal justice. Scout received her B.A. from Columbia University.

Zain Rizvi (YLS '17)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Global Justice

Zain Rizvi will work with SECTION27 to support the health and human rights movement in South Africa. Over twenty years after the end of apartheid, South Africa remains a deeply unequal society—in everything from income to life expectancy. The South African Constitution, one of the most progressive in the world, enshrines a range of socioeconomic rights to address these stark inequalities, including the right to health care. Zain will assist SECTION27 in legal advocacy and other strategies against a provincial health department for its failure to provide emergency medical services. He will also work with local coalitions to advocate for a national intellectual property policy that increases access to medicines.

Zain graduated from McMaster University (BHSc), and is a writer on health policy, law, and human rights. His writing has appeared in medical and legal journals, as well as Ottawa Citizen and The Washington Post.

The Gruber Program for Global Justice and Women’s Rights at Yale Law School is proud to announce the 2016–2017 Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellows in Global Justice and Women’s Rights: Mohsin Bhat ’11, Conchita Cruz ’16, Ruth Metzel ’16 FES/SOM, Hassaan Sipra ’16 FES, and Sarah Tolbert ’16 Jackson/FES. Each Fellow has developed in collaboration with a host organization a yearlong project that aims to advance justice and human rights. Topics span a range of critical issues including access to housing, political asylum, and environmental justice. Projects include developing a pilot program to secure land rights for indigenous groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo, launching a new organization to advocate for the end of family detention for asylum seekers in the United States, and establishing a new cooperative model to formalize the waste picker sector in Lahore, Pakistan.

M. Mohsin Alam Bhat ’11
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Global Justice

As a Gruber fellow, Mohsin Bhat will build a project to tackle religious and caste discrimination in urban housing in India. Discrimination in the private housing market has perceptibly escalated in the country leading to further ghettoization of marginalized communities. In collaboration with the Centre of Equity Studies, Mohsin will consolidate the empirical evidence of housing discrimination and its impact on disadvantaged groups. He will draft a policy document addressing the absence of a comprehensive anti-discrimination legal regime through extensive consultation and involvement of local communities in Delhi and Mumbai. He will also generate a long-term legal strategy in partnership with legal advocacy groups. The goal of the project is to create a platform joining local communities and activists in furtherance of the right to housing, minority rights, as well as the nascent movement for civil rights in the non-state public sphere in India. Mohsin received his bachelors of law from NALSAR University (India). Prior to his graduate studies at Yale Law School, he served as a law clerk to Justice P. Sathasivam at the Supreme Court of India. His doctoral research is on the law and social movement politics of affirmative action for religious and caste minorities in India.

Conchita Cruz ’16
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Women’s Rights

Conchita Cruz is the co-founder and future project director of the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (ASAP) at the Urban Justice Center, a new project to help Central American refugee families while in detention and upon release to win their asylum cases and stay in the United States. She will work directly on cases and on policy measures to stop the detention and deportation of Central American refugee women and children. Conchita graduated from Brown University (BA) and is currently in her third year at Yale Law School. At Yale, Conchita served as the chair of the Latino Law Student Association (LLSA) and the president of the American Constitution Society (ACS). Before starting law school, Conchita served as the deputy chief of staff to Congressman Jared Polis (D-CO), responsible for communications and immigration policy. Conchita also served as the chief of staff for State Senator Gustavo Rivera of the Bronx, where she focused her work primarily on immigrants’ rights issues and criminal justice reform. Conchita has also worked on a number of political campaigns, including Obama for America and the Alex Sink for Governor campaign.

Ruth Metzel ’16 FES/SOM
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Global Justice

During her Fellowship year, Ruth Metzel will work with the Azuero Earth Project to connect smallholder farmers and landowners to the global climate finance landscape. The Azuero peninsula of Panama is one of the most drought-prone, climatically vulnerable regions of Central America, and although its farmers are becoming increasingly interested in reforestation, national and international reforestation finance landscapes are difficult to navigate. Through her Gruber Fellowship, Ruth will develop a strategy for advocating for smallholder farmer rights at the international level by enhancing understanding of current climate and reforestation finance policies, and creating a vehicle through which smallholder farmers can insert themselves into this finance landscape to capture funding that will help them mitigate and adapt to climate change. Ruth will graduate in May with a Master of Forestry (MF) from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the Yale School of Management. Prior to her graduate studies, she co-founded the Azuero Earth Project and served as its first director. She holds a BA in ecology and evolutionary biology from Princeton University.

Hassaan Sipra ’16 FES
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Global Justice

Hassaan Sipra will be working with the Lahore Waste Management Company (LWMC) in Pakistan to formalize the informal waste pickers sector of Lahore and streamline the waste management processes of the city through the development of a cooperative model. Inspiration for this project was drawn from successful cooperative models already established in other developing cities, including Curitiba, Brazil and Pune, India. Furthermore, the Government of Punjab has given LWMC the mandate to expand their operations to six other major cities in the province, and lessons learned from engaging the informal waste pickers sector of Lahore may be applied to that expansion process. A well-structured cooperative model that involves all relevant stakeholders will raise the living standards of the informal waste pickers of Lahore and simultaneously increase LWMC’s operational efficiency. Hassaan will work closely with LWMC, City District Government Lahore, United Nations Development Program, Sustainable Development Policy Institute, universities and other relevant stakeholders to implement engagement mechanisms for the informal waste pickers of Lahore, through commissioned studies, dialogue, and negotiated action plans. Prior to completing his graduate studies at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, Hassaan had worked in the U.S., Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Oman, and Uzbekistan in the fields of energy efficiency, rural housing development, commodities market analysis, farming practices, conservation and policy development. He also received a BA from Westminster College (Missouri) in 2011.

Sarah Tolbert ’16 Jackson/FES
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Global Justice

As a Gruber Fellow in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Sarah Tolbert will collaborate with Strong Roots, a local Congolese organization, on a pilot project to help indigenous groups apply for land tenure under the 2014 Community Forest Law. The passage of the 2014 Community Forest Law is the first time communities in the DRC are able to apply for land tenure, which ensures access to the land they depend on. During her fellowship, Sarah will work with communities in the Kahuzi-Itombwe Corridor. This area is not only home to six indigenous communities, but also provides habitat for numerous endemic and endangered species, most notably the eastern lowland gorilla. Working closely with Strong Roots staff, traditional authorities, and local communities, Sarah will help create Conservation Committees and work with the Committees to collect the baseline information needed for the Conservation Plans, both of which are requirements to qualify for land tenure. Sarah will graduate in May from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies (MEM) and the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs (MA) and holds a BA from Case Western Reserve University. Prior to graduate school, Sarah worked in Benin for three years as a Peace Corps volunteer, implementing sustainable agriculture projects. She also conducted research on the cost and benefits of living near gorilla-protected areas in the DRC, Rwanda, and Uganda.

The Gruber Program for Global Justice and Women’s Rights is delighted to announce the 2015-2016 Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellows in Global Justice and Women’s Rights. These five Yale graduates will spend their fellowship year working on projects ranging from LGBT rights advocacy in India, to enhancing food security and climate change adapatation measures among women farmers in Bolivia, to developing groundbreaking international wilderness protection guidelines to ensure Indigenous peoples’ rights. Within the United States, Gruber Fellows will work on cutting edge litigation strategies and policy initiatives with transnational implications for unaccompanied minors and women immigrant workers. The Gruber Program is proud to support these projects that advance the Gruber ideals of global justice and women’s rights.

Erin Beasley (FES '15)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Women’s Rights

During her fellowship year, Erin Beasley will work to improve food security, women’s leadership, and rural livelihoods in central Bolivia in light of global climate change. She will collaborate with Gaia Pacha, a national environmental non-profit foundation. Erin’s project will involve an assessment of adaptation initiatives for small-scale agriculture. She also will develop a radio program designed by women farmers for women farmers as they implement adaptive practices in their farms. The radio program will give women farmers an opportunity to share adaptation projects in their own terms, and listeners will learn more about the diversity of projects and programs that other farmers are implementing. The goal of this work is to strengthen women’s public voice and leadership as practitioners, decision makers, and innovators in household and regional food security. Erin will graduate in May from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies (MEM) and holds a BS from Pennsylvania State University. Prior to her graduate studies, Erin was the assistant director of a non-profit organization in Bolivia, supporting public health, human rights, education, and environmental quality.

Sarah Casson (FES '15)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Global Justice

As a Gruber Fellow, Sarah Casson will work with the WILD Foundation to research and develop international wilderness protection guidelines that ensure Indigenous peoples’ rights to their traditional territories. These guidelines will be disseminated globally through the framework of the International Union of Conserving Nature (IUCN). In the name of both wilderness protection and development, Indigenous peoples are often given unequal access to natural resources, restricted from their historic homelands, or forcibly relocated into substandard, non-wilderness locations. Such violations of Indigenous peoples’ rights have occurred, and indeed still occur, with frequency around the globe. Sarah will serve as a project manager for this transnational initiative. She will coordinate an international team of professionals drawn from indigenous communities, research institutions, wilderness managers, and non-governmental organizations, and lead the drafting and presentation of these critically timed guidelines at the IUCN conference, which annually convenes thousands of the world’s leading environmental experts. Sarah is a graduate of Grinnell College (B.A.) and will graduate in May 2015 from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies (MESc).

Gillian Gillers (YLS '13)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Women’s Rights

Gillian will work with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Immigrant Justice Project, based in Atlanta, Georgia. She will work on litigation and policy measures to challenge abuses of migrant women who work on J-1 visas in the hospitality industry in the Southeastern United States. The State Department's J-1 visa is intended to promote cultural exchange and international cooperation, but employers have increasingly used it to exploit cheap labor. Gillian will bring cases in federal court to hold employers and labor recruiters liable for charging J-1 migrants exorbitant fees and lying about promised jobs. She also will file complaints with the U.S. State Department on behalf of migrant hospitality workers and advocate for policy changes to State Department regulations governing the J-1 visa. Gillian graduated from Yale College (B.A.) and Yale Law School (J.D.). Before law school, she worked as a reporter in Costa Rica. She is currently a law clerk to Hon. Stephen A. Higginson on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Yuvraj Joshi (YLS ’15)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Global Justice

Yuvraj Joshi will work with Human Rights Watch to advocate the repeal of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code—India’s sodomy law. Against the Indian Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Section 377 on the basis that the law is seldom enforced, Yuvraj’s project will document the law’s insidious effects on the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in India. Over the course of the fellowship, Yuvraj will research and draft a human rights report on the law’s impact on the rights and needs of LGBT people in areas such as harassment, violence, and access to healthcare, and organize an advocacy campaign around the report. Yuvraj will also contribute to an ongoing collaboration between Human Rights Watch and Yale University entitled “Colonial Legacies: An International Project on Anti-Sodomy Laws and Sexual Violence in Asia and Africa.” Prior to his graduate studies at Yale Law School, Yuvraj received his bachelor of laws from University College London and a bachelor of arts (honors) from the University of Toronto. Yuvraj has worked at the United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS and the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, advocating for the protection of the rights of sexual minorities. Yuvraj has published in the areas of human rights, gender and sexuality, inclusion and diversity, and corporate social responsibility. His writing has appeared in academic journals in the US, the UK and Australia, as well as The Guardian.

Charanya Krishnaswami (YLS '13)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Global Justice

As a Gruber Fellow, Charanya will work with Public Counsel in Los Angeles on an innovative joint immigration and appellate law project whose focus is immigrant children from Mexico and Central America who are seeking asylum in the United States in an effort to escape pervasive gang- and cartel-based violence. Under the current, restrictive U.S. asylum regime, most gang- and cartel-based violence claims are not recognized, even though the danger these asylum-seekers face is grave. During Charanya's fellowship year, she will employ novel litigation strategies to advocate for the recognition of these asylum claims at the administrative and federal levels. Charanya graduated from Yale Law School in 2013, and previously worked for the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network in Colorado. She currently serves as a law clerk to Judge Raymond Fisher on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Pasadena, California.

The Gruber Program for Global Justice and Women’s Rights at Yale Law School is proud to announce the 2014-2015 Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellows in Global Justice and Women’s Rights. This group of outstanding Yale graduates will work to advance the rights of diverse populations in a multitude of settings, including China, Latin America, Myanmar/Burma, Antigua and Barbuda, and the United States. Their projects tackle a wide range of critical issues, including LGBT rights, gender and the environment, global access to medicines, mass atrocities and international relations, microfinance, and immigrant domestic workers’ rights. The Gruber Fellows will work to develop innovative advocacy strategies, research, and policy recommendations with potentially far-reaching impact.

Hannah Brennan (Yale Law School ‘13)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Global Justice

Hannah Brennan will work with Public Citizen’s Global Access to Medicines Project to develop a human rights-based litigation strategy that seeks to expand access to medications. This litigation strategy will marshal novel right-to-health arguments to modify or invalidate key intellectual property (IP) laws in developing countries. The project will focus on the Latin American region, where most nations respect the right to health within their constitutions. The project’s outputs will be three-fold: a working brief articulating the legal arguments necessary to link the right to health to higher patentability thresholds and decreased data exclusivity; a report comparing the level of IP protection in various low- and middle-income countries and their potential receptivity to human rights-based litigation; and, most importantly, the initiation of such litigation in at least one country. Hannah will be based in Public Citizen’s Washington, D.C. office, and will conduct research in target Latin American countries. Prior to attending Yale Law School, Hannah was a Fulbright Scholar in Lima, Peru, where she studied human and labor rights abuses in the domestic housework industry. She also has worked for a variety of public health-oriented NGOs throughout Central and South America. Hannah is currently clerking on the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., which has appellate jurisdiction over all patent appeals.

Hilary Oliva Faxon (Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies ‘13)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Women’s Rights

Hilary Oliva Faxon will work to implement the environment section of Myanmar’s first National Strategic Plan for Advancement of Women, which comes at a critical juncture in the country’s recent pivot towards human rights and democracy. Hilary’s fellowship placement is with the Local Resource Centre, a Myanmar non-governmental organization focused on building civil society capacity. She also will serve as technical advisor to the Gender Equity Network, which will provide a platform for cross-sector collaboration on the twin goals of women’s empowerment and sustainable development. Drawing upon her previous experience with community conservation and development in Bhutan and with women and water in Haiti, Hilary will initiate research and reports to inform how gender considerations might be incorporated into national environmental policies and programs. Hilary also will develop related workshops, educational curricula, and toolkits for government, civil society groups, and local communities. A graduate of both the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and Yale College, Hilary aims to blend her academic background in environmental governance with practical experience in policymaking and community conservation to contribute to the successful implementation of Myanmar’s ground-breaking national plan.

Lia Nicholson (Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies ‘14)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Women’s Rights

As a Gruber Fellow, Lia Nicholson will manage a community-based climate change project for the government of Antigua and Barbuda. Based in the Environment Division of the Ministry of Agriculture, Lands, Housing and the Environment, Lia will pilot adaptation measures to protect vulnerable communities from the impacts of global climate change. Lia’s work will include a focus on engaging and empowering women’s groups to proactively respond to climate variability and sustain an active voice in national development. As part of her program with the government, Lia will work closely with community groups and non-governmental organizations. She also will use a personal blog to document grassroots efforts. Lia’s fellowship project aims to inform national planning and policy, as well as to disseminate lessons learned through regional and international networks. As a citizen of Antigua and Barbuda, Lia’s goal is to contribute to the developing portfolio of adaptation solutions for those who most acutely suffer from, but are least responsible for, the climate crisis. Lia is a graduate of Scripps College (with honors) and the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Prior to graduate school, she directed a civil society organization in Antigua and Barbuda that worked to improve quality of life through the sustainable management of natural resources.

Celso Perez (Yale Law School ‘14)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Global Justice

Celso will work with Human Rights Watch (HRW) to implement the organization’s nascent advocacy strategy on the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) couples in Latin America and the Caribbean. In collaboration with local advocacy groups, Celso will identify Latin American countries where an intervention by HRW could have a significant impact on the rights and needs of LGBT couples in areas such as housing, access to healthcare, violence, adoption, marriage, child custody, taxes, and public benefits. Over the course of his fellowship, Celso will research and draft a human rights report on the state of LGBT rights in these countries, lead a media advocacy campaign around the report, and lobby key decision makers for changes in national policy and legislation. Celso’s project seeks to set a precedent that will both protect LGBT couples in Latin America, and help develop broader advocacy strategies around LGBT rights in the global South. Before coming to Yale, Celso was a community organizer and high school teacher in Ecuador.

Shayak Sarkar (Yale Law School ‘13)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Women’s Rights

As a Gruber Fellow, Shayak Sarkar will work with Greater Boston Legal Services (GBLS) to strengthen domestic workers’ rights to fair pay and employment practices. Specifically, Shayak will help draft research reports mandated by the pending Massachusetts Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights (MDWBR) by drawing upon legal analysis and the voices of domestic workers, many of whom are vulnerable immigrant women. As domestic workers build organizing strength, Massachusetts has the potential to create robust state-based employment structures that exceed federal minimum standards. He will also directly represent aggrieved domestic workers as an attorney in the labor and employment unit at GBLS. Before attending Yale Law School on a Soros Fellowship for New Americans, Shayak graduated from Harvard with dual bachelor's and master's degrees in applied mathematics and statistics. Afterwards, he studied social work and development economics at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in economics at Harvard.

Julia Spiegel (Yale Law School ‘13)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Global Justice

Julia will serve as a policy advisor in the Executive Office of the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power. She will work on a variety of foreign policy issues, focusing in particular on preventing and responding to mass atrocities. She will author briefing papers for Ambassador Power and her senior staff, assist with writing speeches and remarks, and actively participate in the development of policy positions affecting the United Nations and the U.S. government on matters concerning civilian protection, international justice and accountability, and sanctions among other issues. To accomplish these goals, she will work closely with a range of colleagues at the U.S. Mission, the State Department, and the White House, as well as with representatives from other U.N. Missions and non-governmental organizations. Julia is a graduate of Yale Law School (J.D.), the Woodrow Wilson School of Public & International Affairs at Princeton University (M.P.A.) and Stanford University (B.A.). She currently serves as a law clerk to Hon. M. Margaret McKeown of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Daniel Tam-Claiborne (Jackson Institute for Global Affairs ‘14)
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Women’s Rights

Daniel Tam-Claiborne will spend his fellowship year working on a microfinance initiative with the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation (CFPA), the largest civil society organization of its kind on the mainland. Against the backdrop of China’s rapid economic growth, small-scale microfinance has been applied as a way to mitigate the increasingly widening income gap between the urban rich and the rural poor. CFPA has been a pioneer in the field, having benefitted over 1.2 million rural farmers in its 16-year existence, of which over 90% are women. Based in Beijing, Daniel will undertake fieldwork in rural townships to support the organization by measuring the impact of CFPA’s microloans on women farmers. These impact evaluations will incorporate both qualitative surveys and quantitative analysis to assess the degree to which microloans are supporting improved livelihoods across a matrix of key indicators. With a background in writing and a passion for storytelling, Daniel will also be drafting ethnographic pieces that provoke wider discourse on domestic poverty in China. By working directly with a local NGO to empower rural women, this initiative seeks to contribute to increased participation and further development of the fledgling microfinance sector in China. Prior to his graduate studies at Yale’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, Daniel spent two years working in the rural northern town of Taigu, China as a recipient of a Shansi Fellowship. Daniel is a graduate of Yale University (M.A.) and Oberlin College (B.A.).

The Gruber Program for Global Justice and Women’s Rights is pleased to award the 2013-2014 Gruber Fellows to six Fellows, hailing from three of Yale University’s professional and graduate schools. The Fellows spent a year working on global justice and women’s rights projects of their own design. Their projects covered a range of critical issues, including post-conflict legal reform and community reconciliation, women’s economic empowerment, food security, the intersection of religious freedom and equal treatment, reproductive rights, migrant rights, and the prosecution of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Glenda Aldana Madrid (Yale Law School ’13)

As a Gruber Fellow, Glenda M. Aldana Madrid worked with the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project (NWIRP) in Seattle, Washington, to further the global cause for migrants’ rights by combating Border Patrol’s abusive interior enforcement practices. Specifically, Glenda worked to curtail Border Patrol’s use of racial profiling while conducting roving patrol stops in Washington State. She did so by developing and filing administrative complaints and damages suits challenging Border Patrol’s actions, assisting NWIRP’s partner organizations in doing the same, and representing individuals facing removal in immigration court as a result of Border Patrol’s transgressions. In the process, Glenda worked closely with community organizations to equip them with the tools and knowledge needed to defend their members’ rights while also providing support for a class action lawsuit that NWIRP filed against Border Patrol for Fourth Amendment violations. The project aimed to draw national and international attention to the plight of Washington’s immigrant and minority populations while influencing the way Border Patrol conducts its operations. Today, Glenda continues to work alongside NWIRP's legal director in managing the organization's civil rights/impact litigation docket. In addition to this impact litigation work, she also represents clients in their individual immigration cases before the Executive Office of Immigration Review and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Andrew Iliff (Yale Law School ’12)

As a Gruber Fellow, Andrew returned to Zimbabwe, where he grew up, to work with the Centre for Conflict Management and Transformation (CCMT). CCMT’s core mission is “to enhance communities’ capacities to deal with conflicts, enabling stable and durable peace” through peacebuilding, development and leadership. Over the past decade, CCMT has intervened in a variety of conflicts in grassroots communities. While Zimbabwe’s long political conflict has divided communities, other cleavages have split communities as well. Major sources of conflict identified by the Peace Builders Network of Zimbabwe (PBNZ) include ambiguity of land tenure, competing parallel governance systems, poor service delivery and inequitable and non-transparent allocation of relief goods. At CCMT, Andrew took a leading role in formulating and implementing an innovative advocacy strategy. CCMT’s advocacy complemented and supported interventions through research, analysis and lobbying. Advocacy targeted participants in CCMT’s interventions, as well as CCMT’s peers and partners in the PBNZ, donors, local authorities and independent commissions. Targeted and practical advocacy reports amplified CCMT’s development and intervention work, providing tools to communities and institutions to help manage conflict peacefully and durably. Post-fellowship, Andrew continues to work at the Centre for Conflict Management and Transformation.

Marvin Lim (Yale Law School ’13)

Marvin Lim worked with the ACLU’s Center for Liberty in New York, spearheading a new effort to facilitate strategic coordination among global civil liberties organizations on issues at the intersection of religious freedom and equal treatment, such as synchronized, transnational legal efforts by certain organization to invoke religious conscious clauses to limit reproductive healthcare to women worldwide. Marvin drafted comparative analyses of challenges abroad, proposed harmonizing litigation strategies, and coordinated collaborative filings. Before joining Yale Law School’s Class of 2013, Marvin graduated magna cum laude from Emory University, then worked in international security and development. Marvin continues to work for the ACLU as a consultant, in continuation of his Gruber project.

Jeffrey Love (Yale Law School ’12)

Jeff Love, a 2012 graduate of Yale Law School, spent his fellowship year working with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, Netherlands. At the ICTY, Jeff supported the work of Judge Liu Daqun on a variety of cases involving atrocities alleged to have occurred during the1990s Balkan war. In particular, he focused on the case of Nikola Sainovic, a former high-ranking Serbian official charged with war crimes allegedly committed against the ethnic Albanian population in Kosovo. Before moving to New Haven, Jeff graduated from Stanford University with dual bachelor's and master's degrees and worked on political accountability and legislative reform in Kampala, Uganda. Jeff currently clerks for Judge David Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Amelia Reese Masterson (Yale School of Public Health ’13)

Amelia worked to develop a community-based, women’s empowerment and food security project among Palestinian refugee communities in Lebanon. This project recognized that empowering women to generate sustainable income not only meets the needs of women and their families, but can also improve food security in the wider community. The initiative aimed to develop the entrepreneurial skills of women to run cooperative kitchens that provide nutritionally balanced and locally sourced school meals to local schools. The project was implemented through a partnership between the Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences at the American University in Beirut (AUB) and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA). As program manager, Amelia recruited community participants and design nutrition training materials, as well as piloted and evaluated the project. The initiative sought to establish a women’s cooperative venture within the first year, and through its unique partnership with Palestinian schools, set a trajectory for continued improvements in community nutrition and food security for years to come. Amelina currently serves as a Research Adviser in Nutrition & Food Security for International Medical Corps in Washington, DC and Beirut, Lebanon.

Zorka Milin (Jackson Institute for Global Affairs ’13)

Zorka spent her fellowship year working with Global Witness, an international organization advocating for justice and transparency in the extraction of natural resources. She worked towards launching a new global tax justice campaign to draw public attention to how the international tax system and secrecy in the extractive sector exacerbate global poverty and inequality. A member of Yale Jackson Institute for Global Affairs Class of 2013, Zorka holds J.D. and LL.M. law degrees from Cornell Law School and has over five years of experience in international tax law practice. She has also worked with Timap for Justice, a local organization in Sierra Leone, where she helped organize affected villagers in pursuing complaints against UK mining companies for damage to crops and the environment, labor violations and other human rights abuses. Post-fellowship, Zorka continues to work at Global Witness as a legal adviser. She also serves as Director of Research for Financial Transparency with the non-profit network Academics Stand Against Poverty, and as a visiting fellow at Yale University with the Global Justice Program and with Yale Law School's Information Society Project.

Two Yale Law School students, a recent Yale Law School graduate, and two Yale School of Nursing students were named recipients of Gruber Global Justice and Women’s Rights Fellowships for 2012-2013. Erin George ’12 YSN, Amanda Gutierrez ’12, Becca Heller ’10, Stephanie Keene ’12, and Nichole Trumper ’12 YSN each spent a year working on projects that help to promote global justice or women’s rights.

The fellowships were introduced as part of the Gruber Program for Global Justice and Women’s Rights at Yale Law School. They are open to all Yale graduate and professional school students in their final year as well as those who have graduated within the past three years.

“The Gruber Fellowships offer a magnificent opportunity for talented Yale alumni to launch careers in global justice and women’s rights,” said Yale Law School Dean Robert Post ’77. “We’re thrilled to have such a strong group of fellows this year.”

Erin George spent her fellowship year with Partners In Health, where she worked in partnership with Haitian health care leaders to build capacity among Haitian nurses and midwives. Erin conducted needs assessments of nurses and midwives at Partners In Health sites and created clinical, education, and research partnerships between Haitian and American health organizations in order to strengthen the nursing and midwifery professions in Haiti. A member of Yale School of Nursing Class of 2012, Erin graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 2006 with a B.A. in Growth and Structure of Cities and from MGH Institute of Health Professions in 2010 with a BSN. She previously worked as a nutrition educator in Hawaii and a women’s health and HIV community health researcher in Boston, MA. Erin is now a certified nurse-midwife at Brigham and Women's Hospital, providing prenatal and gynecology care through BWH's Adolescent Reproductive Health Services and attending births at BWH's Center for Women and Newborns in Boston, MA.

Amanda Gutierrez spent her fellowship year working with the Center for Justice and International Law in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in collaboration with domestic organizations to address the exploitation of migrant Bolivian workers in the Argentine textile industry. Amanda documented labor practices in the industry, assessed the Argentine government’s response to pervasive exploitation, and developed strategies to leverage the power of international law and domestic organizing to improve the government’s approach on this issue. Amanda, a member of the Yale Law School Class of 2012, graduated with highest honors and highest distinction from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she was involved with a number of immigrants’ rights initiatives.

Becca Heller, Yale Law School Class of 2010, spent her fellowship year working with the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), specifically by developing legal interventions for Iraqi refugee young women and girls who are being sexually trafficked. With Jonathan Finer ’09, Becca co-founded IRAP as a student organization when she was a YLS student. With enormous support from Yale Law School, IRAP has become an international law student movement for refugee rights, with chapters at more than 20 law schools in the United States and the Middle East. In addition to the honor of being selected as a Gruber Fellow, Becca has received Skadden and Echoing Green Fellowships in recognition of her work with IRAP. In addition to her continued work at IRAP, she is currently a visiting clinical lecturer in law at YLS and was recently named one of the Christian Science Monitor's “30 Change Agents Under 30.”

Stephanie Keene worked with the International Justice Mission (IJM) in Kampala, Uganda, to provide legal services to women and children who have been victims of illegal property seizure, or “property grabbing.” Stephanie supported IJM lawsuits on behalf of victims of property grabbing; led and developed legal training for Ugandan justice officials; and developed strategies to reform customary practices that impede women’s property rights in rural communities. Before joining the Yale Law School Class of 2012, Stephanie graduated with high honors from Princeton University and worked for the U.N. World Food Program in Dakar, Senegal. Today, Stephanie is an associate at Covington & Burling, where she advises clients in the firm's Anti-Corruption, International Trade Controls, and Government Contracts practice groups.

Nichole Trumper, a member of the Yale School of Nursing class of 2012, spent her fellowship year working with the Good Samaritan Mission Council in La Romana, Dominican Republic. As a pediatric nurse practitioner, her primary project supported the hospital’s emergency room and mobile clinics through execution of direct pediatric acute and preventative care, as well as developing protocols for more efficient evidence-based care. Secondary projects included training health promoters in the local villages of sugar cane workers and making a directory of specialty pediatric providers. She also assisted with the clean water, food access and family planning programs. Before coming to Yale, Nichole graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and was academic All-Big Ten as a member of the badger crew team. Nicole now works as a pediatric nurse practitioner in a federally qualified health center (FQHC) in Saint Paul, MN providing primary care services to disadvantaged children. She works with many new immigrants, cultures and enjoys using her Spanish language skills to communicate with her patients.

Caroline Gross YLS ’10
International Association of Women Judges in Washington, DC and Tanzania

Caroline Gross is a 2010 graduate of Yale Law School. During her fellowship year, Caroline worked for the International Association of Women Judges on combating “sextortion,” or the abuse of power through sexual exploitation, in Tanzania. Working with Tanzanian judges and NGOs, she developed materials for practitioners, victims, and government officials on the application of Tanzanian and international anti-corruption laws to the problem of sexual exploitation, and she prepared a report on barriers to the implementation of these laws.

Caroline graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University in 2005, with an A.B. in History and Science. She clerked for the Honorable Stanley Marcus of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit before beginning her fellowship. She is currently an associate at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP in New York City.

Scarlet Kim YLS ’11
Human rights work with the New York Civil Liberties Union

Scarlet Kim spent her fellowship year at the New York Civil Liberties Union, where she worked on a project addressing the use of prolonged solitary confinement in New York state prisons. Scarlet documented conditions of confinement at several New York supermax prisons and conducted legal research exploring methods of incorporating international human rights law into a New York state constitutional challenge to prolonged solitary confinement.

A member of the Yale Law School class of 2011, Scarlet graduated from Yale College, where she studied history and international studies. Scarlet has also studied in China on a Fulbright Fellowship and worked as a research associate at the Council on Foreign Relations. Scarlet now serves as an Associate Legal Advisor at the International Criminal Court.

Gruber Fellows and Projects

2023-24 Gruber Fellows and Projects

2023-24 PETER AND PATRICIA GRUBER FELLOWS IN GLOBAL

JUSTICE AND WOMEN’S RIGHTS

2022-23 Gruber Fellows and Projects

2021-22 Gruber Fellows and Projects

2020-21 Gruber Fellows and Projects

2019-20 Gruber Fellows and Projects

2018–19 Gruber Fellows and Projects

2017–18 Gruber Fellows and Projects

2016–17 Gruber Fellows and Projects

2015-16 Gruber Fellows and Projects

2014-15 Gruber Fellows and Projects

2013-14 Gruber Fellows and Projects

2012-13 Gruber Fellows and Projects

2011-12 Gruber Fellows and Projects