Maria R. Domínguez

Maria Domínguez "received her JD in the Charter Class of St. Thomas University School of Law (1987). Since 1991, she has been the executive director of the Human Rights Institute at St. Thomas University. Under her leadership, the institute has received numerous recognitions, including ARETE 2001 ("virtue" in Greek). She has a long-standing record of working on behalf of immigrants. During the 1980s and early 1990s, she was an attorney with the Pro Bono Project of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (South Florida). Prior to becoming a lawyer, Ms. Domínguez was a social worker and an elementary school teacher.

"In 1998, then-Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright appointed her public delegate to the U.S. delegation to the 54th Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva. In 2000, she was a witness on the hearing, "Children's Rights in Cuba," before the Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights of the US House of Representatives.

"Ms. Domínguez serves on the board of numerous organizations, including One Nation Inc., Public Health Trust, FACE (Facts about Cuban Exiles), Dade County Health Policy Authority, and American Immigration Lawyers Association (South Florida). She also serves or has served on the Miami Area Refugee Task Force (1995-present), the Guantanamo Refugee Assimilation and Self-Sufficiency Project (GRASP) (1995-1998), the Miami Chamber of Commerce Immigration Core Group (1994-present), the Guantanamo Legal Defense Team (1994-1995), and the Governor's Interagency Work Group - Mass Immigration Contingency Plan (1993-1994), among others. She has published widely and has been interviewed often in the Miami media.

"Ms. Domínguez's long record of public service has been duly recognized. She has received various awards, such as Jackson Health System's Long-Standing Dedication to Public Service throughout South Florida (2000), St. Thomas University's Hispanic Law Society Recognition Award (1997), FACE's Annual Excellence Award (1996), Miami Cuban Lions Club (1995), and the newspaper's La Estrella de Nicaragua Award for Professional, Civic, and Humanitarian Merits (1991). In 1995, the Human Rights Institute, which she directs, was bestowed the Peace and Unity Award by the St. Martin de Porres Association, a coalition of black Catholic leaders." 

In 2003 he was a board member of the Memory, Truth and Justice: Comparative Perspectives on National Reconciliation.