Dr. Grace Cheng is the Founding Director of the Center for Human Rights in the College of Arts and Letters at San Diego State University, where she also teaches courses on human rights, political violence, and the politics of resistance at SDSU. Dr. Cheng's writings and research interests concern questions of human rights, self-determination, and sovereignty, as well as migration and displacement. She was a Fulbright Specialist (2018-2023), involving a project at the Centre for Human Rights, Multiculturalism and Migration, University of Jember in Indonesia and is involved in scholar-practitioner projects to integrate human rights principles and redress for past abuses in efforts to re-establish peace, including as a member of the Board of Advisors of the West African Transitional Justice Centre (Nigeria) and Advisor to the International Institute for Peace and Development Studies (Thailand).
Ethnic discrimination or persecution, Journalist persecution, Land tenure disputes, Political persecution, Religious discrimination or persecution, Risk of retaliation, Safe internal relocation, Tribal discrimination or persecution
Direct work/research on such issues: Intern at International Organization for Migration (Manila/Palawan, the Philippines); academic research; research for presentations and consultation on university in-country research projects (various in Asia); co-author of 2018 Joint Stakeholder Report to UNHRC on US migration policy (for human rights committee of American Branch of International Law Association. I address these issues in the following: as organizer of 2023 border conference at San Diego; and ongoing as co-director of human rights and border studies curriculum development at San Diego State University, in academic community engagement with San Diego organizations working in this field.
I have not yet written country expert reports for asylum cases