Asylum Seekers Advocacy Project (ASAP) was founded in the spring of 2015 by four Yale law students—Conchita Cruz, Swapna Reddy, Dorothy Tegeler, and Liz Willis—to prevent the wrongful detention and deportation of refugee women and children.
Dorothy Tegeler is a Skadden Fellow. Prior to law school, Dorothy worked for five years at the health education non-profit Hesperian Health Guides, best known for its practical books such as Where There Is No Doctor. As an Editor and then the Assistant Director of Hesperian, Dorothy edited sixteen community health manuals in English and Spanish and helped to launch a “health wiki” that is now used by over 4 million people per year. Dorothy also has a background in organizing for domestic worker rights and disability justice with the group Hand in Hand.
From 2016-2017, Dorothy was a law clerk to Judge Michael P. Shea in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut. She earned her J.D. from Yale Law School in 2016. As a law student, Dorothy represented clients in immigration, employment, housing, child custody, and post-conviction criminal cases through the New Haven Legal Assistance Association, Criminal Justice Clinic, and Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic. She graduated with honors from Brown University with a degree in International Relations in 2008. Dorothy speaks English and Spanish.
Dorothy is interview here by Arsema Thomas (MPH ’18), Women Innovation & Entrepreneurship Coordinator at Tsai CITY.
