Talia Bailes Named Inaugural Student Fellow for Research to Advance Global Health & Human Rights

The Center for Global Health Equity is proud to announce that Talia Bailes, a third-year medical student at the University of Michigan Medical School, has been selected as its inaugural Fellow for Research to Advance Global Health & Human Rights. 

This new fellowship—offered through a partnership between the Center for Global Health Equity, the Donia Human Rights Center, and Physicians for Human Rights—supports graduate and professional students in pursuing research and advocacy projects that advance health equity through a human rights lens. Fellows receive funding and mentorship to carry out interdisciplinary projects over a six-month period. 

Bailes will undertake her fellowship from June to November 2025, under the guidance of Michele Heisler, MD, professor of internal medicine and public health at U-M and medical director at Physicians for Human Rights. Her project will explore how asylum-seeking migrants across the Americas access healthcare, with a particular focus on Spanish-speaking communities. Her research will involve fieldwork in Latin America and along the US–Mexico border, with the goal of comparing experiences across diverse health systems and legal contexts. 

“As a medical student at the University of Michigan and future pediatrician, I am so fortunate to learn from and collaborate with such influential and caring mentors and recognized experts,” said Bailes. “This fellowship, I hope, will enable me and future students to make a small step toward addressing the wide array of challenges we face in global health and human rights.” Bailes brings extensive international and domestic experience to this role. As an undergraduate at Cornell University, she led women’s health focus groups with Timmy Global Health, an international nonprofit empowering communities to improve local health outcomes. In Colombia, she collaborated with faculty at the Universidad de Antioquia on a community-based study investigating the role of traditional dance in promoting youth well-being. In 2023, she received a grant from the Center for Global Health Equity to continue that work in rural Colombia, in partnership with local dance groups and pediatricians at Mott Children’s Hospital. 

Domestically, Bailes has served as co-director of the University of Michigan Asylum Collaborative and led the national Physicians for Human Rights student conference. She is also the founder and executive director of Ballet and Books, a national nonprofit that promotes literacy through dance and storytelling and engages hundreds of volunteers and children across the U.S. 

Through the fellowship, Bailes hopes to deepen her understanding of how clinical care, community engagement, and policy advocacy can be integrated to improve health outcomes for displaced populations. Her work reflects the core mission of the fellowship program: to support the next generation of physician-leaders, researchers, and advocates committed to health and human rights.