I had the pleasure of working with Patrick Ball at the Human Rights Data Analysis Group office in San Francisco during the summer of 2016. This training proved indispensable as I worked to process and publish a number of datasets on human rights violations during the El Salvador Civil War as part of a collaboration between

In recent years, scholars and social movements have brought the issue of mass incarceration into public consciousness in the United States. Many now know that the U.S. has the world’s largest prison population, or have heard alarming figures, like an incarceration rate for Black men that is 6 times that for white men. At the

A message from UWCHR Director, Prof. Angelina Snodgrass Godoy Dear friends, With UW’s fall quarter now underway, our offices at the Center for Human Rights are once again abuzz with activity. We’ve spent the past few weeks laying out plans for the year ahead, training our new undergraduate researchers, and welcoming back our seasoned grad

For my pre-dissertation research I spent almost three months in Amman, Jordan this past summer. While my research broadly aims to examine the material practices and visions of the future of the Palestinian youth living in and out of refugee camps in Amman, human rights and humanitarian aid regimes are crucial in tackling how young Palestinian

This past summer I conducted nearly 40 in-depth interviews in Israel with asylum seekers from Eritrea and Sudan. I study the political organizing of migrants who are without permanent legal status, comparing between mobilization efforts led by African migrants in Israel with similar endeavors led by Latino migrants in the state of Washington. Thanks to

With the support of the Mack-Mayerfield and Caldwell Funds, I completed my preliminary dissertation research this past summer in Xela (also known as Quetzaltenango), Guatemala. I learned the basics of K’iche’, a native language in Guatemala, built relationships with new and old friends, and revised and strengthened my dissertation topic, which seeks to understand why, and

Professor Katherine Beckett, UWCHR Steering Committee member and faculty in the Departments of Sociology and Law, Societies, and Justice, has published a piece in The American Prospect, titled “Violence, Mass Incarceration, and the Myth of Monstrosity.” The article draws on work related to the Rethinking Punishment initiative, led by Prof. Beckett and Prof. Steve Herbert. Prof. Beckett

On August 15, 2016, United States Congressional Representatives Jim McGovern of Massachusetts and Norma Torres of California delivered a letter to President Barack Obama, signed by 26 Members of Congress, calling for the declassification of U.S. military and intelligence files relating to forced disappearances and human rights abuses during the Salvadoran civil war. Additionally, Representatives

Thanks to the Osheroff-Clark Fund I was able to work for Human Rights Watch (HRW) in the US Program as a research intern, where I had one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life. The first half of my ten weeks interning was centered on the conditions of detention centers in the

Through the Abe Osheroff and Gunnel Clark Endowed Human Rights Fund I worked on developing a letter writing project connecting people inside and out of the Northwest Detention Center (NWDC), one of the largest immigration detention centers in the country, which in 2004, was built on a Superfund site in Tacoma’s Commencement Bay tidal flats.