Professor Medha D. Makhlouf hosts book manuscript workshop with leading scholars from various disciplines

CARLISLE, PA—On September 25, 2026, Professor Medha D. Makhlouf hosted a day-long, virtual workshop focused on her book project, Health Justice for Migrants: Law as a Social Determinant of Health.

Makhlouf invited a small, notable group of academics, profiled below, to participate in the workshop. Since the book is intended for an interdisciplinary audience, she invited readers from the fields of law, medicine, sociology, and anthropology. Participants read and prepared feedback on each of the six completed chapters of the manuscript in the month preceding the workshop. Makhlouf plans to incorporate their feedback as she completes and revises the manuscript.

Dr. Heide Castañeda is professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of South Florida. Her research portfolio is in critical border studies, legal and medical anthropology, migration, health, and citizenship, focusing on the U.S./Mexico border, Germany, and Morocco. She is the author of Migration and Health: Critical Perspectives (Routledge, 2023) and Borders of Belonging: Struggle and Solidarity in Mixed-Status Immigrant Families (Stanford University Press, 2019) and co-editor of Unequal Coverage: The Experience of Health Care Reform in the United States (NYU Press, 2018). Her latest book is American Amazigh: Remaking North African Indigeneity and Belonging in the Diaspora (NYU Press, 2026).

Dr. Castañeda has also published 60+ peer-reviewed research articles. She is a Fulbright scholar, and her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), and the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research.

Dr. Tiffany Joseph is professor of sociology and international affairs at Northeastern University. Her research and teaching interests explore race, ethnicity, and migration in the Americas; immigrants' health and health care access; immigration and health policy; and the experiences of faculty of color in academia. Her most recent book, (Not) All In: Race, Immigration, and Healthcare Exclusion in the Age of Obamacare (Johns Hopkins University Press), explores how documentation status, race, and ethnicity influence the health care access of immigrants after comprehensive health reform.

She has received grants and awards from the Ford Foundation, Institute for Citizens and Scholars, Institute for International Education Fulbright Program, Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program, National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. She is also the author of Race on the Move: Brazilian Migrants and the Global Reconstruction of Race (Stanford University Press, 2015), and her work has been published in various peer-reviewed journals and national media outlets.

Matt Lawrence is professor at Emory University School of Law, where he previously served as associate dean of faculty. His research into the administrative law of federal spending includes “Disappropriation,” “Subordination and Separation of Powers,” “Second-Class Administrative Law,” and “Appropriations Presidentialism.” His research into the regulation of addictions includes “Drug Scheduling as Institutional Design,” “Public Health Law’s Digital Frontier,” “Defederalizing Opioid Addiction Treatment,” and “Addiction & Liberty.”

He has extensive federal regulatory experience, including current service as a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States and prior service at the Department of Justice during the Obama administration, Office of Management and Budget during the first Trump administration, and Drug Enforcement Administration during the Biden administration.

Fatma Marouf is professor of law and director of the Legal Clinic at Texas A&M University School of Law. Her research interests are at the intersection of immigration law, international human rights law, and constitutional law. Her recent scholarship has examined the rights of mentally incompetent individuals in removal proceedings, the exclusion of DREAMers from the Affordable Care Act, and community-based alternatives to immigration detention.

She also has conducted empirical research to analyze judicial decision-making and implicit bias in immigration appeals. Prior to entering academia, she worked as a staff attorney for California Rural Legal Assistance, clerked for U.S. District Court Judge Consuelo B. Marshall in the Central District of California, and practiced immigration law in Los Angeles, focusing particularly on asylum, deportation defense, and federal appeals.

Dr. Altaf Saadi is associate professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Office of Scholarly Engagement. Her work bridges clinical neurology, health equity, and human rights, with a particular focus on the health and well-being of displaced and marginalized populations. She also serves as associate director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Asylum Clinic, where she provides and oversees forensic medical evaluations for U.S. asylum seekers and survivors of torture.

She has served as a medical expert for leading human and civil rights organizations, including Physicians for Human Rights, the ACLU, the National Immigrant Justice Center, Public Counsel, Rights Behind Bars, Human Rights First, and Disability Rights California. In recognition of her national leadership in health justice, she received the 2023 Bernard Lown Award for Social Responsibility.

Professor Medha D. Makhlouf is the Elsie de R. and Samuel P. Orlando Distinguished Professor and founding director of the Medical-Legal Partnership Clinic at Penn State Dickinson Law. She has a joint appointment in the Department of Public Health Sciences at Penn State College of Medicine. Professor Makhlouf’s research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of health law, immigrants’ rights, and poverty law and policy. Her recent scholarship has been published in the Boston University Law Review, New York University Law Review, and the Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law & Ethics. Professor Makhlouf is currently writing a book, tentatively titled Health Justice for Migrants, which is under contract with Cambridge University Press.