2025 Human Rights Summer Research Grant Awardees Announced

We've awarded the Human Rights Summer Research Grant to seven outstanding students this year! These students will receive up to $2,000 each to support their student-driven research projects this summer. Each research project has a significant human rights focus.  

These students will be sharing an inside look into their experiences through blog posts, which will be featured on the Duke Human Rights Blog throughout the summer and fall! Here's a sneak peek...

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Gloria Bao will spend a month in Shanghai conducting surveys and interviews to explore how queerness, specifically sapphic identity, is expressed through online language in autocratic contexts. 

Mingyu (Matthew) Joo will travel to South Korea to conduct research on how marginalized communities - such as sex workers, LGBTQ individuals, and political dissidents - have been affected by the presence of U.S. military bases.

Jiae Kim will spend the summer in Uzbekistan interviewing Koryo Saram women (ethnic Koreans in the former Soviet Union region) about their experiences in education and career access in relation to migration, identity, and gender.

Mariana Meza Mantilla will travel to Mexico City to pursue community-driven, socially responsible ways of working with immigrants and producing knowledge within the field of immigration studies, towards the pursuit of immigration justice at large.

Ella Patterson will visit libraries and archives in Durham, Washington D.C., New York City, and Los Angeles to uncover how the Lavender Scare influenced the formation of early LGBTQ organizations, shaped a shared sense of identity, and inspired diverse forms of resistance. 

Samantha Richter will spend the summer in Brussels, the Czech Republic, and Portugal analyzing the political and fiscal barriers to implementing small-scale detention centers in Europe and identifying strategies for overcoming them.

Kulsoom Rizavi will be documenting and analyzing the unionization efforts at Amazon’s RDU1 fulfillment center in Garner, North Carolina, specifically the CAUSE (Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity and Empowerment) movement.