UNA-USA Dane County Events

Join us at 6:30 for food and drink before the presentation.

Araceli Alonso, a native of Madrid, Spain, worked as a RN in Spain for twelve years while pursuing a BA in Philosophy and History at the University of Madrid. She came to the United States to further her graduate studies in Anthropology. Currently she holds a Masters of Science in Physical Anthropology from the University of Minnesota, and a Masters of Arts and a PhD in Cultural Anthropology from UW-Madison.

Dr. Alonso has conducted extensive international research on women's issues especially on those that imply the violation of women's human rights, such as Female Genital Cutting and Sex Trafficking. Dr. Alonso developed the first class taught at UW-Madison on Human Trafficking and Human Rights. She is a Faculty Associate in the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies and in the School of Medicine and Public Health at UW-Madison. She is also working with three international NGOs to develop programs for women's empowerment in the United States, Somalia, Kenya, Uganda, and Cuba.

Professor Alonso was honored at UW-Madison for the Outstanding Women of Color Awards in 2010:

In Wisconsin, Dr. Alonso contributes her expertise to various committees and agencies including the Wisconsin Department of Justice's Committee on Human Trafficking, the Community Coordinated Response (CCR) for street sex workers in Wisconsin; the Advocacy Network of Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE) in Washington, DC; and the Global Health Institute-UW Madison School of Medicine and Public Health.

Dr. Alonso has dedicated her life to working with and promoting the health of women of color across the globe living in very poor conditions. She is the founder of “Health by Motorbike” project that delivers basic health education, services and equipment to women and adolescent girls in remote areas of Kenya. Using professional health workers and motorcycles she reaches communities which have no nearby services of their own, and which are otherwise inaccessible. Dr. Alonso has been recently awarded the Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Grant and a UW-Madison Global Health Institute Grant to support her work in rural Kenya.