Raisa Castro-Ávila is a second-year Ph.D. student in political science at Georgia State University, specializing in comparative politics and public law. Her research examines how Latin American courts define and adjudicate rape, with a focus on how victim characteristics and institutional norms shape judicial decision-making. Drawing on an original dataset of Supreme Court rulings from Ecuador, Colombia, Uruguay, and Costa Rica, her work seeks to understand how legal systems respond to gender-based violence. With support from the APSA Fund for Latino Scholarship, Raisa will expand her project to include post-2018 rulings, additional countries, and lower-court decisions. As a Latina originally from Ecuador, she brings both scholarly rigor and personal insight to her research, aiming to contribute to legal reform and amplify the voices of survivors.
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