Alicia Ely Yamin New Director at Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Center

The Program on the Health Rights of Women and Children at the Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Center which is part of the Harvard School of Public Health aims to

1) increase the incorporation and implementation of rights-based approaches to women's and children's health in current international development processes and donor programs; and

2) strengthen the evidence base for national laws and policies that promote these rights in the context of establishing effective and equitable health systems. Among key initial activities are advocacy to increase a rights-based approach in the realization of the Millennium Development Goals (particularly MDGs 4 and 5) as well as in a post-2015 agenda, and a study to assess the impact of maternal deaths on living children in the family.

Internationally renowned and remarkably accomplished, Alicia Yamin joins our Center faculty to provide intellectual and programmatic leadership to the Program. With a strong academic background in human rights and public health and extensive experience as a field investigator, analyst, professor, and editor, Alicia has gained widespread respect for her work in academia, non-governmental organizations, and UN agencies. Her efforts to conceptualize and operationalize the linkages between health and human rights have characterized her professional career, whether as a practicing attorney, Research Director for Physicians for Human Rights, or as a faculty member at the Mailman School of Public Health of Columbia University, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, or the Harvard School of Public Health. Since 2007, Alicia has been the Joseph H. Flom Fellow on Global Health and Human Rights at Harvard Law School. She served concurrently as Special Adviser to Amnesty International's Demand Dignity Campaign and, since 2009, she is also Associated Senior Researcher at the Chr. Michelsen Institute (Norway).

Yamin has published widely in both English and Spanish in peer-reviewed journals, law reviews and scholarly monographs and has two edited volumes forthcoming from Harvard and Cambridge University Press. She is Chair of the Center for Economic and Social Rights and serves on the advisory boards of several other international human rights organizations. Yamin holds degrees from Harvard College, Harvard Law School, and the Harvard School of Public Health.