Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Center (Center Prodh)
Mexico City, Mexico
Natalie is a J.D. 2019 Harvard Law School (HLS) graduate from San Juan, Puerto Rico (PR). From 2019-2020, she will be working as a staff attorney in the International Department of the Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Center (Center Prodh), one of Mexico’s leading human rights non-governmental organizations (NGOs)—leading the fight against government misconduct and impunity by defending and promoting the respect for human rights in Mexico, focusing on traditionally marginalized communities, such as indigenous peoples, women, and migrants. In that role, she will work on litigation and advocacy before the Inter-American Human Rights System and the United Nations treaty bodies, and will also collaborate with international and regional NGOs in support of cases such as the Ayotzinapa case, and the implementation of the recent, important Inter-American Court of Human Rights Atenco judgment. Natalie graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in Economics in 2010. From 2013-2016, she served the Obama Administration as a political appointee at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), where she worked as Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff and Chief Operating Officer in the Administrator’s Office, and as Strategic Communications and Outreach Advisor in the Office of Private Capital and Microenterprise. Prior to her role at USAID, she served as Aide to Chambers to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor from 2010-2013, and as Special Assistant to the U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador. The summer of 2018, Natalie worked as a law clerk in Bogotá, Colombia, at the José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers’ Collective Corporation (CCAJAR), one of Colombia’s leading human rights NGOs, where was tasked with advancing the organization’s strategy for peace building, specifically its work before the country’s transitional justice system established to implement the 2016 Peace Accord. The summer of 2017, Natalie worked as a law clerk at the Mexico City headquarters of the Centro de los Derechos del Migrante (CDM; Center for Migrant Rights), a binational, U.S./Mexico NGO dedicated to defending migrant workers’ rights. In that role, she helped develop and advance CDM’s advocacy campaign regarding the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) re-negotiation and its impact on seasonal workers’ rights, and conducted know-your-rights trainings and complaints intakes in rural, migrant-sending communities. At HLS, she worked with the International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC) on the Mamani Accountability Litigation project that resulted in a historic trial against the former President of Bolivia and his Defense Minister for extrajudicial killings by the Bolivian armed forces in 2003, and as an advocate for the Tenant Advocacy Project, and a staff member for the Harvard Human Rights Journal and the International Law Journal. In the wake of hurricane María’s devastation of PR in 2017, she also co-founded and co-directed, along with Professor Andrew Crespo and the HLS Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs, the HLS Hurricane María Legal Assistance initiative to provide free legal assistance to some of the island’s most vulnerable communities, including organizing two spring break pro bono trips and winter term volunteer opportunities for JD and LLM students. Natalie is a 2017 and 2018 Chayes international public service fellow. She is fluent in Spanish, English, and French, and proficient in Mandarin Chinese. While at Yale, she studied abroad at La Sorbonne in Paris and Peking University in Beijing. Natalie is Co-Founder of ConPRmetidos, a non-profit social enterprise based in San Juan, PR, committed to creating a stable, productive, and self-sufficient Puerto Rico.