Migrations
We live in a world on the move. All living things—humans, animals, insects, plants, and pathogens—migrate from place to place on our planet. Our cultural products, practices, and messages travel with and beyond us. The Einaudi Center is addressing the critical problems of our world on the move with Migrations: A Global Grand Challenge, part of Global Cornell.
Researching, Teaching, and Building for a World on the Move
Launched in October 2019, the Migrations initiative supports researchers and students from eight colleges and schools across Cornell.
A research team focused on advancing the health of U.S. refugee and immigrant populations represents the Einaudi Center, with co-funding from Einaudi and Migrations. The Einaudi Center’s team is one of three interdisciplinary research teams launching Cornell’s Migrations Lab in 2020. Einaudi faculty and students are active in other Migrations-funded teams, projects, and activities across campus. The Einaudi Center hosts a migration studies minor for undergraduates and offers frequent migration-themed events and funding opportunities.
Refugee and Immigrant Health Team
The Einaudi Center’s Migrations team concentrates on improving the health and well-being of refugee and immigrant populations in the United States.
Working at the nexus of law, medicine, and technology, the team is investigating how increasing immigrants’ knowledge about legal rights can help them engage with health care systems. The research will produce new digital tools to inform immigrants of their rights and increase their participation in health systems and public benefits.
Gunisha Kaur (Weill Cornell Medicine) and Stephen Yale-Loehr (Cornell Law School) received dual funding to serve as Einaudi’s faculty fellows, leading a multicampus collaboration that includes postdoctoral fellow Eleanor Paynter.
Faculty Fellows
Gunisha Kaur
Gunisha Kaur is an anesthesiologist specializing in global health and human rights, particularly among displaced populations. She serves as medical director of the Weill Cornell Center for Human Rights and as director of the Anesthesiology Global Health Initiative.
Stephen Yale-Loehr
Stephen Yale-Loehr is a professor of immigration law practice at Cornell Law School and a counsel at Miller Mayer in Ithaca, New York. A coauthor of Immigration Law and Procedure, the leading treatise on U.S. immigration law, he works with refugees and people who are detained.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Eleanor Paynter
Eleanor Paynter graduated from the Ohio State University with a doctorate in comparative studies. She studies migration from Africa to Europe via the Mediterranean Sea, using migrant testimonies to analyze displacement and asylum. Her dissertation received the International Studies Association’s 2021 Lynne Rienner Publishers Award for Best Dissertation in Human Rights.
Collaborators
Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research
Natalie Bazarova
Natalie Bazarova is an associate professor of communication in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. She examines social-psychological and communication processes in social media and mobile interactions.
