Carr Center awards Traub-Dicker Fellowships for summer 2009

The Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) has awarded Traub-Dicker-HKS Fellowships for the summer of 2009 to Benjamin Hall and Baylee DeCastro. Hall and DeCastro will spend the summer researching in the domain of policies affecting the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities.

Both students bring a strong record of academic achievement and a long-standing commitment to LGBT human rights. Hall will study police reform in London’s LGBT community, and DeCastro will research LGBT health advocacy in San Francisco. Timothy Patrick McCarthy, adjunct lecturer in public policy and Carr Center faculty affiliate, will advise their research projects.

“I am genuinely delighted to welcome Ben Hall and Baylee DeCastro as the Carr Center’s inaugural Traub-Dicker-HKS Summer Research Fellows,” says McCarthy. “These two extraordinary students bring a rare combination of talents — intellectual heft, political acumen, and personal passion — to the study of LGBT human rights and public policy. We are all very excited to see the fruits of their important research.”

McCarthy added, “Personally, I am also extremely grateful to our friends Margaret Traub and Phyllis Dicker, not only for making this exciting fellowship opportunity possible, but for supporting the Carr Center’s growing commitment to LGBT human rights.”

Hall joined the Metropolitan Police, London, in 2001, and graduated as the top student in his class in the police academy. He spent one year in uniformed response in South London before selection into the Detective Corps where he worked in investigation units for sexual assault and domestic violence. After two years’ service, he was selected for specialist operations at New Scotland Yard at the age of 23, where he has since been promoted to detective sergeant in the Serious Crime Command. Before coming to Harvard as a Kennedy Scholar, he received a French and Spanish B.A. with honors from University College, London; an M.Sc. in criminal justice policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science; and an M.Phil. in criminological research from Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, U.K.

DeCastro is a second-year master in public policy (M.P.P.) student at HKS. As a committed public health advocate, DeCastro has worked for over a decade to unlock the health system’s potential to restore economic security and promote the health of low-income and medically underserved communities. Her research focuses on the relationship between the production of scientific knowledge and its use in policy formulation and implementation. As one of this year’s Traub-Dicker Research Fellows, her research examines the ways in which state-centered advocacy efforts toward LGBT inclusion as subjects and objects of health research influence health policy. Prior to coming to the Kennedy School, DeCastro served as policy adviser to three large University of California, San Francisco, clinical, policy, and research programs, where she forged successful partnerships with health care providers and community organizations to promote quality affordable health care statewide. DeCastro also led a national network of women’s health professionals as executive director of the Association of Academic Women’s Health Programs.

The Traub-Dicker-HKS Summer Research Fellowship is intended to support the summer research of one or two HKS students in the domain of policies affecting the LGBT communities. This program was established through a gift by Margaret Traub ’80 and her partner, Phyllis Dicker.