Center for Gender and Refugee Studies

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Background information
on gender and asylum issues4

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Staff
Board
Funders
Visiting International Scholars
Law Clerks

Staff

Karen Musalo
Professor Karen Musalo directs the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, and the Refugee and Human Rights Clinic. She is lead co-author of Refugee Law and Policy: An International and Comparative Approach (3rd edition), and has contributed to the evolving jurisprudence of asylum law through her scholarship, as well as her litigation of landmark cases. Professor Musalo was lead attorney in Matter of Kasinga (fear of female genital cutting as a basis of asylum), which continues to be cited as authority in gender asylum cases by tribunals from Canada to the United Kingdom to New Zealand. She was co-counsel in the Ninth Circuit en banc decision, Abebe v. Gonzales, and attorney of record in Canas-Segovia v. INS and Ramirez-Rivas v. INS. She represents Rodi Alvarado, whose case is likely to determine whether women fleeing domestic violence may qualify for political asylum in the United States. Professor Musalo has been quoted extensively in the media, including The New York Times, Washington Post, The Nation and El Pais, and has been interviewed on other media, such as Nightline, CNN International, The Diane Rehm Show and Talk of the Nation. She was featured in the PBS Documentary, Breaking Free: A Woman's Story, which focuses on Rodi Alvarado's case. Professor Musalo is recognized for her innovative work on refugee issues. She was the first attorney to partner with psychologists in her representation of traumatized asylum seekers -- a practice that has since become standard -- and she edited the first handbook for practitioners on cross-cultural issues and the impact of culture on credibility in the asylum context. She has received numerous advocacy awards for her pioneering legal work, including The American Lawyer's 1997 recognition as one of the forty-five outstanding young public interest lawyers. Professor Musalo has is a frequent speaker at conferences and law schools in the United States, and has lectured in Europe and Latin America.

Felecia Bartow
Associate Director. Prior to joining CGRS, Felecia worked with various stakeholders on issues related to refugee/immigrants' rights and human rights at the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) in Philadelphia and the National Immigrant Justice Center (formerly MIHRC) in Chicago, where she served as the co-chair of the Illinois Task Force on Unaccompanied Immigrant Children. Her experiences also include work in Honduras where she was a consultant to COMAL, an alternative community marketing network. Felecia was the Dean's Scholar at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis, where she received her MSW. She was an Associate Producer of Rights on the Line, a 2005 AFSC/ACLU/WITNESS video co-production that exposes the anti-immigrant politics behind the Minuteman Project and the militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Lisa Frydman
Staff Attorney. Lisa has extensive experience in asylum law. Both as a staff attorney at Legal Services for Children in San Francisco, and an Equal Justice Works Fellow at the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center (FIAC) in Miami, Lisa represented immigrant children seeking asylum, protection as victims of human trafficking, Special Immigrant Juvenile status, and other types of relief. Many of Lisa’s asylum cases involved representing young women fleeing gender persecution, such as forced marriage, female genital cutting, and sexual abuse. Lisa has significant appellate experience practicing before the Board of Immigration Appeals, and has represented several clients in federal district court. She has played an integral role in local and national efforts aimed at improving policies and practices for immigrant children. Through her participation in legislative, administrative, and media advocacy, as well as public education campaigns, Lisa has fought for immigrant children’s rights. Lisa has given numerous presentations to judges, attorneys, law students, and community members on a broad range of topics, including children's asylum claims, representing trafficked children, and more. Lisa graduated with honors from Boalt Hall School of Law.

Kim Thuy Seelinger
Kazan, McClain, Abrams, Fernandez, Lyons, Farrise & Greenwood Foundation Clinical Teaching Fellow with the Refugee and Human Rights Clinic at U.C. Hastings. Kim joined CGRS in July 2007 after helping to develop a clinical law project at Yunnan University, PRC, as the 2005-2006 Yale-China Association Clinical Legal Education Fellow. Before that, Kim was a staff attorney at the Lutheran Family & Community Services Immigration Unit in New York City, where she worked primarily in the areas of asylum and post-9/11 deportation defense. She graduated from New York University School of Law, and was a student in its Immigrant Rights Clinic. She has worked with the Hague Conference on Private International Law, as well as with the International Labour Organisation’s Trafficking in Children and Women project in Hanoi, Vietnam. Kim was born in Liberia and grew up in various, non-contiguous places.

Diana Rodriguez-Wong
Program and Communications Associate. Diana has worked with the Foundation for Sustainable Development in Nicaragua and interned at the Ecuadorian Ministry of Foreign Affairs' UN and OAS Departments, as well as at the Los Angeles Mayor's Office. She is a cum laude graduate of the University of California, Berkeley. She grew up in Quito, Ecuador.

Ana Elisa Martinez
Program / Administrative Assistant. Ana graduated from Scripps College with a B.A. in Biology, where she was the recipient of a James E. Scripps four-year merit scholarship. She studied health issues in Kenya with the School for International Training and has worked with the New Mexico Department of Health in Taos and Santa Fe. Ana is also employed as a Research Intern with the AIDS Health Project at the University of California, San Francisco.

Advisory Board

Denise Abrams, Partner
Kazan, McClain, Abrams, Fernandez, Lyons, Farrise & Greenwood

Rodi Alvarado, Refugee

Lina Avidan, Program Executive
Zellerbach Family Foundation

Richard Boswell, Professor
University of California, Hastings College of the Law

Inger Brinck, Advisor

Sara Campos, Bay Area Lawyer and Writer

Sheila Dauer, Director
Women’s Human Rights Program, Amnesty International USA

Janet Dench, Executive Director, Canadian Council for Refugees

Jayne Fleming, West Coast Pro Bono Coordinator
Reed Smith

Pamela Goldberg, Protection Officer
United Nations HIgh Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)

Fauziya Kassindja, Refugee

Minette Kwok, Partner
Minami Tamaki LLP

Susan Martin, Director
Institute of International Migration, Georgetown University

Bernadette Passade Cisse, Independent Contractor/Writer

Rebecca Wallace, Professor of International Human Rights Law
Robert Gordon University, Scotland, UK

Funders

CGRS is grateful to all the foundations that currently support its work.

Altria Group, Inc.

The California Health Care Foundation, Oakland, CA

The Firedoll Foundation

The Ford Foundation

The Funding Exchange

Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund

The Kazan, McClain, Abrams, Fernandez, Lyons, Farrise & Greenwood Foundation

The Institute of International Education

The Moriah Fund

van Löben Sels/ RembeRock Foundation

Bernard E. and Alba Witkin Charitable Trust

Visiting International Scholars

CGRS has played host to visiting international scholars seeking to engage in research relating to gender asylum.

Nina Truchsess, German doctoral candidate, 2006
Leonie Newhouse, American doctoral candidate, 2006
Marei Pelzer, German refugee lawyer, 2006
Sean Rehaag, Canadian refugee scholar, 2006
Carmen Miguel Juan, Spanish refugee lawyer, 2005
Noemi Alarcon, Spanish refugee lawyer, 2005
Francesca Paltenghi, Italian lawyer, 2004-05
Shahyar Roushan, Australian lawyer & refugee judge, 2004-05
Mary Anne Kenny, Australian immigration professor, 2003

Law Clerks & Volunteers

The work of law clerks continues to be vital to CGRS. CGRS works with law students (working for credit through the Refugee and Human Rights Clinic, as research assistants for pay, or volunteering), as well as other volunteers from all walks of life. These individuals provide critical support to CGRS's work.

2007