Galya Benarieh Ruffer
Director, International Studies Program
PhD, University of Pennsylvania
J.D., Northwestern University
Professor Ruffer specializes in constitutional theory, comparative constitutionalism and human rights with a specific focus on the rights of citizenship and immigrant integration in the United States and Europe. Her recent articles include "Pushed Beyond Recognition? The Liberality of Family Reunification Policies in the EU," Journal of Ethnic Migration Studies (forthcoming) and "The Cosmopolitics of Asylum Seekers in the European Union" (New Political Science, 2005). Her article "Courts Across Borders: The Implications of Judicial Agency for Human Rights and Democracy," (co-authored with David Jacobson) published in Human Rights Quarterly (February 2003), has since been reprinted in People Out of Place (Routledge, 2004) and Dialogues on Migration Policy (Lexington Books, 2006). She has received a fellowship from the Social Science Research Council and was a visiting scholar at the Free University in Berlin. Her current research explores how constitutional rights have enabled or inhibited the civic incorporation of immigrants in the United States and Germany. As part of her broader interest in citizenship, she is also researching how European states, and Germany in particular, have used naming laws to define the boundaries of citizenship and belonging. Aside from her academic work, Professor Ruffer has worked as an immigration attorney representing political asylum claimants both as a solo-practitioner and as a pro-bono attorney with the National Immigrant Justice Center. At Northwestern, Professor Ruffer Directs the International Studies Program and the IS Honors Seminar. She teaches courses on immigration and is a fellow at the Public Affairs Residential College.