Speaking up for Human Rights

Director of Global Institute for Health and Human Rights to address DC Symposium

Kamiar Alaei was invited to speak at a symposium on protecting the rights of refugees fleeing areas of conflict. (Photo by Carlo de Jesus)

ALBANY, N.Y. (Dec. 7, 2017) — Kamiar Alaei, director of UAlbany’s Global Institute for Health and Human Rights (GIHHR), will be a featured speaker at a symposium on “Protecting the Rights of Individuals Fleeing Conflict: The Role of Scientists, Engineers, and Health Professionals,” hosted by the Committee on Human Rights of the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.

The symposium will examine challenges to effective innovation in support of individuals escaping conflict, while highlighting new and effective responses to those challenges. It’s being held today and tomorrow at the National Academies in Washington, D.C.

In addition to being the founding director GIHHR, Alaei is associate dean for Global and Interdisciplinary Research and a public service professor in the Department of Public Administration and Policy at the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy.

He was invited to speak by Columbia University Professor Martin Chalfie, a 2008 Nobel prize winner in chemistry; Professor Anthony Leggett of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a 2003 Nobel Laureate; and other distinguished members of the Human rights committee.

The National Academies’ Committee on Human Rights serves as a bridge between the human rights and scientific communities, in recognition of the importance of rights protection for scientific inquiry and the realization of human dignity worldwide, and raises awareness of pressing issues involving science, engineering, medicine, and human rights.

Alaei will be co-presenting with leading scholars and practitioners, who will examine strategies being used to promote rights and dignity in situations of displacement and identify challenges that scientists, engineers, and health professionals can help to address.

The Global Institute for Health and Human Rights was founded in 2013 with the mission of generating a deeper understanding of the intersection between health and human rights, and promoting innovative solutions to contemporary challenges in this arena. Through research, education, policy, advocacy and development, the Institute seeks to advance the understanding and protection of health and human rights in a theoretical, academic, practical and ethical context.

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