Professor Medha D. Makhlouf serves as co-principal investigator for Latino Research Seed Grant

CARLISLE, Pa.—Professor Medha D. Makhlouf and Professor Nicole Kreisberg, assistant professor, public policy and sociology, received a $20,000 grant from Penn State’s Latino Research Seed Grant Program to support the creation of a website that serves as a resource for data, experts, and insights on U.S. immigration.

The website will host a data dashboard as well as additional content, including a series of “Policy Explainers.” Students in Makhlouf’s Medical-Legal Partnership Clinic have been drafting Policy Explainers this semester about recent or proposed policy changes relating to immigrants and health. The Policy Explainers aim to provide brief, accessible summaries of policy issues for journalists, academics, and the public. Policy Explainers slated to be released in fall 2025 and spring 2026 discuss the executive order on birthright citizenship, changes to immigrant eligibility for subsidized health insurance in the 2025 budget reconciliation law, the administrative guidance reinterpreting the definition of “federal public benefits,” a new data-sharing agreement between the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a CMS initiative requiring states to re-verify the immigration status of noncitizen Medicaid enrollees, and revocation of the Department of Homeland Security’s Sensitive Locations Policy.

The Latino Research Seed Grant Program is a collaboration between Penn State Harrisburg, Penn State College of the Liberal Arts, Penn State Social Science Research Institute, and Pennsylvania Center for Latino Research. It supports innovative interdisciplinary collaborations among Penn State faculty that address issues and challenges affecting Latino communities.

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 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.