2022 News Archive

At the American Public Health Association's annual conference, Robyn Powell was recognized for her work with the Early Career Award for Excellence in Public Health Law. The APHA Law Section gives the Early Career Award annually "to an individual who demonstrates great promise as a future leader in the field of public health law."

Powell's work focuses especially on the intersection of disability and reproductive justice.

Read More about Robyn Powell

We are excited to welcome Alex Green to the Lurie Institute.

Alex Green joins the Lurie Institute for Disability Policy at the Brandeis University Heller School for Social Policy as a visiting research scholar. Green’s research focuses on the history of institutionalization in the United States with a specific focus on public institutions for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. He is the author of landmark legislation in 2022 that will create a disability-led state commission in Massachusetts exploring the history of institutionalization and providing a public framework for reckoning with its legacy in the state. He is currently writing a biography of Walter Elmore Fernald, a seminal figure in the history of disability and special education (Bellevue Literary Press, 2025).

From 2017–2020 Green was the co-creator of a nationally recognized project-based community-focused high school disability history curriculum at Gann Academy in Waltham, Massachusetts. In 2021–22 he led the creation of the first graduate course in disability policy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is currently a visiting fellow at the Harvard Law School Project on Disability and serves on the faculty of the Harvard Kennedy School, where he received the 2022 Manuel C. Carballo Award for excellence in teaching. Green holds a BA from Brandeis University and an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School.

The Lurie Institute for Disability Policy is thrilled to announce the establishment of its fourth federally funded research center, the Community Living Equity Center.

Read More about CLEC

The Lurie Institute for Disability Policy announces its inaugural Carrie Buck Distinguished Fellowship. Funded by the Ford Foundation, the Fellowship is intended for activists, scholars, and community organizers with disabilities whose work draws national attention to systemic ableism in reproductive health policy.

Learn More about the FEllowship

Lurie Institute researcher Robyn Powell's timely analysis, "Including disabled people in the battle to protect abortion rights: A call-to-action," will be published by UCLA Law Review.

Read the work-in-progress

Our 2021–2022 Lurie Institute undergraduate fellows completed their fellowships with compelling research presentations on May 5, 2022.

Watch the video of the presentations

The Lurie Institute for Disability Policy is happy to announce the release of its annual report for 2021. The report describes details of our work at the Lurie Institute and its centers: the National Research Center for Parents with Disabilities, the Community Living Policy Center, and the new National Center for Disability and Pregnancy Research.

Learn about our research, education, and community activities over the past year. The annual report is available in a screen-reader accessible, text-only version as well as a visual version.

Read the Report

The Lurie Institute congratulates our director, Monika Mitra, who has been granted tenure by the Brandeis University Board of Trustees.

Mitra was among three faculty members at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management to receive this honor. As the Heller School statement describes, Mitra and the other two recipients "represent academic excellence and innovative research in several key social policy areas, including U.S. health policy, disability policy and peacebuilding and conflict resolution. This important designation recognizes their many significant contributions to the university and to their fields."

 Read more about the news here.