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The Human Rights Lens: How Science and Law Can Improve Population Health

Thu

12

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Date

November 12, 2026

Time

— CST

Location

Clark-Fox Forum, Hillman Hall

Hybrid

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Overview Agenda Keynote speaker Moderators and panelists

The fields of public health and human rights share a fundamental concern: creating the conditions in which all people can live healthy and dignified lives. Yet the connections between these fields – and the potential for each to strengthen the other – are not always fully realized.

A human rights framework offers public health more than a set of ideals. It provides tools for understanding who is most vulnerable to poor health and why; examining the laws, policies, institutions, and power structures that shape health; defining the obligations of governments and other actors; and creating mechanisms for accountability when those obligations are not met.

This convening, emerging from the Center for Health and Human Rights, will bring together leading scholars, legal experts, public health practitioners, advocates, and policymakers to explore how human rights frameworks can strengthen the pursuit of population health. Through keynote conversations and interdisciplinary panels, participants will examine how rights-based approaches can inform public health research, policy, and practice – from protecting health during conflict and displacement to advancing accountability and supporting the long-term well-being of communities affected by injustice.

At a time of profound global change, the convening asks a forward-looking question: How can a human rights framework help public health better address inequity, improve population health, and even strengthen international justice efforts?

Agenda

8:30 a.m. — 9 a.m.
Registration and light breakfast
9 a.m. — 9:15 a.m.
Welcome and opening remarks

Speakers

  • Kim Thuy Seelinger, JD
    Professor of Practice, WashU Bursky School of Public Health
  • Sandro Galea, MD, DrPH
    Margaret C. Ryan Dean of Public Health, Eugene S. and Constance Kahn Distinguished Professor in Public Health, WashU Bursky School of Public Health; Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Initiatives, WashU
9:15 a.m. — 10 a.m.
Keynote
10 a.m. — 10:40 a.m.
Panel discussion: Health in Crisis – Protection, Displacement, and the Right to Health

Moderator

  • Sandro Galea

Panelists

  • Blake Hamilton
    President and CEO, International Institute of St. Louis
  • Julia López, PhD, MPH, LCSW
    Assistant Professor of Medicine, WashU Medicine; Assistant Professor, WashU Bursky School of Public Health
  • Nhial Tutlam, PhD, MPH
    Assistant Professor, WashU Bursky School of Public Health
10:40 a.m. — 11 a.m.
Break
11 a.m. — 11:45 a.m.
Keynote

Speaker

  • Alexandra Sandoval Mantilla, JD, LLM
    Judge, Coordinator of the Gender Commission of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace in Colombia
11:45 a.m. — 12:25 p.m.
Panel discussion: Accountability, Justice, and Health – From Law to Practice

Moderator

  • Kim Thuy Seelinger

Panelists

  • Lauren Bartlett, JD
    Professor, Director of the Human Rights at Home Litigation Clinic, Saint Louis University School of Law
  • Alexandra Sandoval Mantilla
  • Leila Nadya Sadat, JD, LLM
    James Carr Professor of International Criminal Law, WashU Law
  • Payal Shah, JD
    Director of Research, Legal, and Advocacy, Physicians for Human Rights

Keynote speaker

Alexandra Sandoval Mantilla, JD, LLM
Alexandra Sandoval Mantilla, JD, LLM
Judge, Coordinator of the Gender Commission of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace in Colombia
Alexandra Sandoval Mantilla is currently a judge of the Amnesty or Pardon Chamber and coordinator of the Gender Commission of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP). She also served as Vice-President of the jurisdiction from 2020 to 2022. She has worked as a Senior Attorney at Women’s Link Worldwide, as a clerk at the Council of State, and as a Senior Attorney at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. She holds a law degree from the University of Los Andes (Colombia) and a Master’s degree in Human Rights and International Criminal Law from Utrecht University (The Netherlands). In addition, she has been a professor at the University of Los Andes, Universidad Externado de Colombia, and Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (Cali), and has delivered numerous conferences and lectures worldwide. In 2025, she was awarded the O’Brien Human Rights Fellowship at McGill University. She is the author of two books and multiple academic articles.

Moderators and panelists

Sandro Galea, MD, DrPH
Margaret C. Ryan Dean of Public Health, Eugene S. and Constance Kahn Distinguished Professor in Public Health, WashU Bursky School of Public Health; Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Initiatives, WashU
The inaugural dean of WashU Bursky School of Public Health, Galea is one of the most cited social scientists in the world. His writing and work are featured regularly in national and global public media. A native of Malta, he has served as a field physician for Doctors Without Borders and also has held academic and leadership positions at Boston University, Columbia University, University of Michigan, and the New York Academy of Medicine.
Kim Thuy Seelinger
Kim Thuy Seelinger, JD
Professor of Practice, WashU Bursky School of Public Health
Kim Thuy Seelinger is director of the Center for Health and Human Rights and an expert on gender-based violence in armed conflict and forced displacement, focusing on survivors’ needs for protection and accountability and strengthening the support and legal systems they encounter. Seelinger engages with justice actors, victims’ advocates, human rights defenders and asylum adjudicators to develop survivor-centered approaches in Africa, Europe and the Americas. She previously worked for the International Criminal Court in The Hague and has served on the UN High Commissioner for Refugees' Advisory Group on Gender, Forced Displacement, and Protection.
Lauren E. Bartlett, JD
Lauren Bartlett, JD
Professor and Director of the Human Rights at Home Litigation Clinic, Saint Louis University School of Law
Lauren E. Bartlett founded the Human Rights at Home Litigation Clinic in 2020 to focus on securing fundamental human rights for vulnerable persons and communities in the St. Louis region. Previously, Bartlett served as the Director of Legal Clinics and Associate Professor of Law at Ohio Northern University College of Law. From 2011-2015, she worked at American University Washington College of Law's Center for Human Rights & Humanitarian Law. Bartlett is a former legal aid attorney and co-founded the Louisiana Justice Institute in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Blake Hamilton
Blake Hamilton
President and CEO, International Institute of St. Louis
Blake Hamilton is President and CEO of the International Institute of St. Louis. For more than 16 years at the Insitute, Hamilton has guided workforce, education, and immigration services, expanded immigration legal support, and championed small-business growth through the Institute’s Community Development Corporation. He is also known for his award-winning work in inclusive economic development and immigrant advocacy, partnering closely with civic, business, non-profit and neighborhood leaders to make St. Louis a welcoming home for all.
Julia Lopez
Julia López, PhD, MPH, LCSW
Assistant Professor of Medicine, WashU Medicine; Assistant Professor, WashU Bursky School of Public Health
Julia Lopez is an assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases and the associate director of the Center for Health and Human Rights. Her research focuses on understanding how gaps in research and clinical practice in the areas of HIV care, immigrant health, and sexual and gender minority health affect mental and physical health outcomes and developing ways to address these gaps effectively through community collaboration, both domestically and globally.
Leila Nadya Sadat
Leila Nadya Sadat, JD, LLM
James Carr Professor of International Criminal Law, WashU Law
Leila Nadya Sadat is one of the world’s foremost authorities in the fields of public international law, international criminal, human rights, and foreign affairs. She has previously served at Special Adviser on Crimes Against Humanity to the International Criminal Court Prosecutor and was recently appointed as a U.S. expert to the OSCE Moscow Mechanism. Sadat is the current Chair of the American Branch of the International Law Association, and a member of the American Law Institute and the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations.
Payal Shah, JD
Payal Shah, JD
Director of Research, Legal, and Advocacy, Physicians for Human Rights
Payal Shah is an international human rights lawyer with over two decades of experience working at the intersection of gender, health, and human rights. She is the director of research, legal, and advocacy at Physicians for Human Rights. Payal was previously PHR's director of the program on sexual violence in conflict zones. Prior to that, Payal worked for over a decade at the Center for Reproductive Rights where she directed the Asia program.
Nhial Tutlam
Nhial Tutlam, MPH, PhD
Assistant Professor, WashU Bursky School of Public Health
Nhial Tutlam studies how the trauma of war affects the mental health of young people and increases the risk of problems such as suicide, substance use, and HIV infection. He develops and tests culturally appropriate, community-based interventions to support the mental health of vulnerable youth belonging to families resettled in the U.S. as refugees as well as those living in refugee camps and resettlement in sub-Saharan Africa.