Pauline White Meeusen

Pauline White Meeusen is an interdisciplinary sociolegal scholar whose research focuses on immigration and refugee law and policy, law and social movements, and the legal profession. Her current work examines whether and how volunteers who provided direct legal services to asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border and in immigration detention centers came to see themselves as part of a social movement. She explores what motivated their sense of collective identity, the mechanisms that transformed pro bono direct legal services into movement-like collective action, and how individuals’ self-perceptions as members of a social movement evolved over time in the shifting social and political landscape between 2019-2023. She has received several grants and fellowships for her research, including generous support from the National Science Foundation.

Pauline holds a PhD in Jurisprudence and Social Policy from the University of California, Berkeley, a JD with a specialization in international law from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, a MA in the social sciences with a concentration in international history and human rights from the University of Chicago, and a BA in international relations from Wellesley College.