Originally from Congo, Reine came to the US on political asylum as a child. Her experience drove her to Weill Cornell Medical College (WCMC), where she joined the Center for Human Rights, documenting physicians’ psychological and gynecological evaluations to help victims of violence apply for asylum. On the Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) student board, Reine helped develop PHR’s national sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) physician training module. Under Dr. Lindsay Stark, Reine has researched SGBV survivors’ mental health in Sub-Saharan Africa, and helped examine the impact of a Mercy Corps family-based, gender-transformative intervention on Syrian refugee girls’ resilience in Jordanian refugee camps. Reine has also written about racism in medicine and served on the WCMC Anti-Racism Curriculum Task Force. Reine aims to build a career advancing global health policies that recognize the rights of displaced persons. Reine holds a B.S. in biology from Yale University.
Reine’s project focuses on exploring stakeholder perspectives amongst refugees and the Turkana community on the impact of the new Kakuma Refugee Camp pediatric surgery system, with the Turkana County Ministry of Health and UNHCR. The project seeks to understand refugees’ barriers to accessing care, as well as community assets and challenges regarding policies targeting the integration of refugees in local public health insurance systems.