Two New Fellows Join CGHE's Global Health and Human Rights Research Fellowship

For the latest cohort of fellows in a joint program between CGHE, the Donia Human Rights Center, and Physicians for Human Rights, the work begins not with abstractions but with people: a Congolese teenager navigating resettlement in western Michigan, an injured patient waiting for an ambulance in Cairo. Two University of Michigan researchers will spend the next six months asking what it means to protect health and human dignity when the systems designed to do so are failing.

The Fellowship for Research to Advance Global Health and Human Rights was created to prepare future leaders in global health who can use rigorous research to advance justice and equity through a human rights lens. This summer, the program's June to November 2026 term welcomes two fellows whose questions are shaped as much by personal experience as by scholarly training.

Irene Routté, Ph.D. candidate, Social Work and Anthropology

Irene Routté has spent years working at the intersection of displacement, mental health, and social inclusion, conducting research with Congolese refugee youth in Rwanda and in western Michigan, and providing trauma-informed mental health evaluations for asylum seekers. Her approach to this work is rooted in a belief that health cannot be separated from the environments that shape it.

"My global health perspective is rooted in an ecological understanding of health as inseparable from social and physical environments, particularly how place attachment shapes social connection and mental health outcomes within refugee camps and resettlement contexts," Routté said.

This fellowship will extend that work into a new arena: the psychosocial health of individuals and families caught in U.S. immigration detention and asylum proceedings. Working alongside PHR's Michele Heisler, Routté will examine how prolonged legal uncertainty, detention conditions, and the threat of removal shape mental health over time, and what that means for clinicians, practitioners, and policymakers working with people seeking asylum.

"I am especially excited by the opportunity to work alongside Dr. Heisler and her colleagues at Physicians for Human Rights, whose collaborative and practice-oriented approach to human rights will deepen and strengthen my ability to use research as an effective tool to leverage policymakers and support practitioners, and advocate for individuals navigating forced displacement in pursuit of asylum, safety, and belonging," she said.

Routté's research will not require travel; interviews will be conducted remotely.

Mary Falstin, MD candidate, University of Michigan Medical School

Mary Falstin came to global health research through a question she first encountered as a child: What happens to patients when health systems break down? Growing up, she watched political and economic instability erode Egypt's public institutions, a reality that became personal when her father suffered a heart attack and her family, thousands of miles away, struggled to know whether he would receive the care he needed.

"Healthcare systems do not fail in isolation. When political institutions weaken, healthcare systems weaken with them -- and patients pay the price," Falstin said.

That early reckoning became a research agenda. As a medical student, Falstin returned to Egypt to study how fragmented infrastructure, transport gaps, and resource constraints complicate care for critically injured patients. She now works with Lay First Responders International on a USAID-funded digital training platform equipping community members in Uganda, Nigeria, Kenya, and Sierra Leone with emergency response skills. Her fellowship research will examine how trauma care systems function in settings affected by political instability, with a particular focus on North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa, and how communities and clinicians sustain access to care when formal systems are strained.

"Healthcare, justice, and human dignity are inseparable, and my path is to defend them wherever they are most fragile," she said.

Falstin anticipates field-based engagement in her regions of focus, with a research plan to be finalized with her faculty mentor.

Both fellows will conduct their work under the mentorship of Physicians for Human Rights, whose use of medical and scientific evidence to document human rights violations has been central to the organization's mission since it shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997. The fellowship runs through November 2026.