Donald M. Kerwin, Jr., Executive Director
Donald M. Kerwin, Jr. has directed the Center for Migration Studies (CMS) of New York since September 2011. Prior to coming to CMS, Mr. Kerwin served as Vice-President for Programs at the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), where he coordinated MPI’s diverse programs and wrote on immigration, labor, and refugee policy issues. Before joining MPI, Mr. Kerwin worked for 16 years at the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC), including 15 years as that agency’s Executive Director. Mr. Kerwin also served as CLINIC’s Executive Director on an interim basis between September 2012 and March 2013. CLINIC, a subsidiary of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), is a public interest legal corporation that supports a national network of 215 charitable legal programs for immigrants. During Mr. Kerwin’s earlier tenure at CLINIC, the agency administered the nation’s largest political asylum, detainee services, immigration appeals, and naturalization programs. CLINIC also offers the nation’s most extensive training and legal support programs for community-based immigrant agencies. Upon his arrival in 1992, Mr. Kerwin coordinated CLINIC’s political asylum project for Haitians.
Mr. Kerwin has served as a non-resident senior fellow at MPI; an associate fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center where he co-directed Woodstock’s Theology of Migration Project; on the American Bar Association’s Commission on Immigration; the Council on Foreign Relations’ Immigration Task Force; the board of directors of Jesuit Refugee Services-USA; the board of the Capital Area Immigrant Rights Coalition; as an advisor to the USCCB Committee on Migration; and on numerous other advisory groups. He serves on the board of directors for the Border Network for Human Rights in El Paso, Texas. Mr. Kerwin writes and speaks extensively on immigration policy issues.
Ellen Percy Kraly, Editor of the International Migration Review
Ellen Percy Kraly was appointed Editor for the International Migration Review in November 2011. Professor Kraly is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Geography at Colgate University. She holds a M.Sc. in demography from The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and earned her Ph.D. from Fordham University in sociology with an emphasis in population studies. Her published scholarship has addressed the relationship between immigration and US population dynamics and environment, emigration, international migration statistics, refugee policy and resettlement, immigrant incorporation, and population data systems and human rights. Kraly was a member of the National Academy of Sciences Panel on Immigration Statistics and has prepared reports on topics including international migration data and immigration policies for the United Nations Statistical Commission, National Academy of Sciences, US Immigration and Naturalization Service, US Census Bureau and US Commission on Immigration Reform. She has an active research program, teaches courses in geography, environmental studies, peace and conflict studies and sociology at Colgate University, and serves on the board of directors of numerous non-profit organizations.
J. Rachel Reyes, Communications Coordinator
Rachel Reyes received her Juris Doctorate from the University of San Francisco, and is an admitted attorney to the State Bar of California. Focusing on women’s rights and displacement, Rachel has: drafted motions and organized high-level conferences with the Committee on Migration, Refugees and Population at the Council of Europe; advocated for protections for refugee and internally displaced women at the 53rd Session on the Commission on the Status of Women with Human Rights Advocates; spearheaded fundraising campaigns to fund legal aid programs in Thailand and Ecuador for Asylum Access; and assisted in the rebuilding of PeaceWomen Project to better provide news, resources and events surrounding issues of women, peace and security. She also worked with Global Justice Center to help develop legal arguments regarding the deliberate transmission of HIV in armed conflict.
Rachel authored “Deliver Us from our Protectors: Accountability for Violations Committed by Humanitarian Aid Staff against Refugee Women and Children” which was published in the summer 2009 edition of the University of San Francisco Law Review. Rachel holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of California, Berkeley, and is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in International Affairs at The New School, concentrating on conflict and security and governance and rights.
Breana George, Research Coordinator
Breana George received a Master of Public Administration degree from New York University’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service with a specialization in international policy. At NYU, she conducted research for the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Institute for Mexicans Abroad on transnational labor certification and training for Mexican migrant workers in the United States. Prior to graduate study, Breana served as a researcher and academic program manager at the University of California, Santa Cruz, from where she holds a Bachelors of Arts. At the UC Center for Justice, Tolerance and Community, she collaborated with faculty and community based organizations to carry out research and program evaluation in such areas as environmental justice and immigrants and the digital divide. In addition, she supported the implementation of the Summer Institute for Social Change Across Borders, a project that brought together grassroots leaders from both Latin America and Latino communities in the United States to build knowledge on social justice organizing. From this project, Breana has participated extensively in the work of human rights groups in Mexico City. She is fluent in Spanish.
Mary Brown, Archivist
Mary Brown first came to CMS in 1979 to work on a dissertation on the intersection of Italian immigration and New York City Catholicism, which eventually resulted in the CMS publication Churches, Communities and Children. Dr. Brown has been associated with CMS since then, first as a researcher writing parish community studies and editing book-length memoirs for publication, and since 1995 as an archivist processing collections and answering researchers’ questions. She also serves as the archivist and as an adjunct professor at Marymount Manhattan College.
Catalina Morales, Bookkeeper
Catalina Morales received her Bachelor of Science Degree in Accounting at Lehman College of the City University of New York. She also studied Italian Literature at Bologna University in Italy. A native of Cuba, she migrated to Venezuela then Puerto Rico and finally arrived in the United States in 1967. Her experience extends over 26 years in various industries as an accountant. Her area of expertise is financial analysis.
