Elba Heddesheimer

Elba Heddesheimer is a junior in Davenport College at Yale University, majoring in Political Science and pursuing certificates in Spanish and German. Her academic and professional interests lie at the intersection of migration, human rights, and European studies, with a particular focus on comparing migrant experiences and diasporas in Europe and the United States. She is especially interested in how immigrant communities—such as the Turkish diaspora in Germany and the Mexican diaspora in the U.S.—navigate national frameworks around citizenship, identity, and integration.

Although much of Elba’s advocacy and legal work has been U.S.-based, including internships with Human Rights First’s Refugee Representation Team and Apostle Immigrant Services in New Haven, her recent experiences in Europe have shaped a deepening regional interest. After studying abroad in Berlin in Summer 2024, she was awarded the Baden-Württemberg Scholarship to participate in a fully funded German language and culture program at the University of Freiburg in August 2025. These opportunities have allowed her to study European migration policy and integration efforts firsthand, with a particular interest in refugee reception systems and national discourses surrounding multiculturalism.

On campus, Elba serves as Co-Director of Immigration for Migration Alliance at Yale and as project lead through the Yale Undergraduate Legal Aid Association, where she works with Elena’s Light, a New Haven nonprofit serving refugee women and families. In Summer 2025, she was a GRP Fellow with the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Rights team, where she supported the UPR+ initiative by researching national implementation of Universal Periodic Review (UPR) recommendations, mapping digital rights platforms, and contributing to practitioner tools used by national human rights institutions (NHRIs). This experience also sparked her growing interest in the role of European donor countries in supporting development and human rights work in the Global South, particularly in Latin America. Elba hopes to continue building a career that bridges comparative migration research, international law, and European engagement in global human rights development.

Department: Political Science; Certificates in Spanish & German