Gruber Fellows and Projects

Kee En Chong (YLS ’24)

Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow i Global Justice

Kee En Chong will be working with the Human Trafficking Legal Center to secure justice for human trafficking survivors. Kee En will be working under the Center’s strategic litigation program to combat forced labor in global supply chains, and to prevent the abuse and exploitation of domestic workers brought into the U.S. by diplomats.

Kee En previously served as a justices’ law clerk in Singapore’s Supreme Court. He also served as a prosecutor in Singapore, where he specialized in prosecuting homicide, violent crimes and serious sexual offenses. At Yale Law School (LL.M. ’24), Kee En was part of the Gender Violence Clinic and student director of the Temporary Restraining Order Project, which assists individuals fleeing domestic and intimate partner violence. He graduated from Georgetown University (B.Sc. Foreign Service ’14) and Wolfson College, University of Cambridge (B.A. Law ’16).

Sandhya Kumar (YSPH ’24)

Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Women’s Rights

Sandhya Kumar is a Master of Public Health student in Health Policy with a concentration in Global Health at the Yale School of Public Health. She completed her undergraduate degree in Global Affairs and Global Health at Yale College. Sandhya completed internships with the U.S. Department of State and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance on projects related to routine immunization and sexual and reproductive health. While at Yale, she has volunteered with the Neighborhood Health Project in New Haven and was a Leadership in Global Health Fellow.

Sandhya will spend her fellowship year with Khushi Baby, a nonprofit in Rajasthan, India, where she will work on efforts to roll out the human papillomavirus vaccine for the prevention of cervical cancer. She will work on educating community health workers and on developing partnerships to increase awareness and availability of the vaccine.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

* 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 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 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. 

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 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.

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 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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.