Mónica Ruiz, AB'24, named 2025 Marshall Scholar

Mónica Ruiz, (Law, Letters and Society; Latin American and Caribbean Studies; Romance Languages and Literatures; Sociology, 2024); 2025 Marshall Scholar

As a Marshall Scholar, Mónica plans to study criminology alongside refugee and forced migration studies at the University of Oxford.

Mónica Ruiz House has dedicated her career to advocating for the rights of migrants. As a University of Chicago student, Ruiz House, AB’24, helped provide lifesaving resources to migrants crossing the Sonoran Desert, worked across historically segregated areas of Chicago to advance mental health care facilities in immigrant neighborhoods, and helped Afghani asylum seekers restart their lives in the U.S. with support from the Pozen Center for Human Rights.

Ruiz House has been deeply involved with advocacy work along the US-Mexico border. Last year, Ruiz House was awarded a $10,000 grant from Projects for Peace to implement a grassroots project with an Arizona-based migrant advocacy group called No More Deaths. Ruiz House and her colleagues at No More Deaths have been working on mapping the locations where migrants have lost their lives while crossing the U.S.-Mexico border over the past 15 years. 

She is the 30th person affiliated with UChicago since 1986 to win a Marshall Scholarship, which recognizes academic excellence, leadership and ambassadorial potential.

Read more about Mónica Ruiz’s story here.
To read about more students like Mónica, click here.