Jacqueline Bhabha


Jacqueline Strimpel Bhabha is a British academic, and an attorney. She is the Jeremiah Smith, Jr. lecturer in law at Harvard Law School and teaches public policy at Harvard Kennedy School.
Her research and legal practice has focused on citizenship and rights of aliens, refugee law, trafficking, and smuggling. She is married to Homi K. Bhabha, the critical theorist, and they have three children.

Early life and education

Bhabha was born Jacqueline Strimpel in Mumbai in 1951, the daughter of Jewish refugee parents who had moved to India to flee Nazi Germany. The family moved to Milan, Italy in 1961 when she was ten years old.
She matriculated at Bedales, a British boarding school. Bhabha received a first class honours degree in philosophy and psychology from Oxford University in 1973, and an MSc in applied social studies in 1975 at the Department of Social Policy and Intervention, University of Oxford. She received her doctoral degree from the College of Law in London.

Career

Bhabha started her career as a human rights lawyer in London and at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. In 1997, Bhabha entered academia when she joined the University of Chicago as the Director of the Human Rights Program – an appointment she continued till 2001.
She later joined Harvard Law School and become a lecturer in law. She serves as the Director of Research at the Francois Bagnoud Xavier Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard, and the University Adviser on Human Rights Education to the Provost at Harvard University. She is also a lecturer on public policy at Harvard Kennedy School.

Publications

She is married to Homi K. Bhabha, the critical theorist. They have three children: Ishan, Satya, and Leah.