Fernando Chang-Muy

Fernando Chang-Muy is the Thomas O’Boyle Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, where he teaches “Refugee Law and Policy.”

In addition, at the Graduate School of Social Policy and Practice, he lectures on Immigration and Social Work; in the Executive Education Program, he teaches Organizational Effectiveness with a focus on strategic planning, board governance, staff communications, and resource development. Chang-Muy is former Assistant Dean and Equal Opportunity Officer at Swarthmore College, where he also taught International Human Rights.

Drawing upon his experience in law, refugee camp administration, and philanthropy, Chang-Muy builds capacity and increases effectiveness through consulting support, coaching, and training to government agencies, local and national philanthropic institutions, social service agencies, and cultural organizations.

His areas of expertise include designing and facilitating large group, task-focused strategic planning, board governance, staff internal communications and performance, and resource development (with a focus on individual donor campaigns). His facilitation skills, combining retreat, meeting design, and planning bring together disparate interests to improve the communities served.

Recent clients include the United Nations-UNAIDS, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Aging, and the City of Philadelphia’s Law and Health Departments. He has directed several philanthropic collaboratives aimed at strengthening immigrant serving nonprofits (Emma Lazarus Collaborative) and Latino serving nonprofits (Hispanics in Philanthropy Collaborative).

Founding director of the Liberty Center for Survivors of Torture, a federally funded project. From 1988 to 1993, Chang-Muy served as Legal Officer with two United Nations agencies: the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugee (UNHCR) and the World Health Organization (WHO), serving as the human rights officer for its Global Program on AIDS.

He has served as former Program Officer at The Philadelphia Foundation, and past coordinator of two funding collaborative: the Emma Lazarus Collaborative, a funding collaborative that, through matching grants from the Open Society Institute, supported non-profit organizations providing service and advocacy for immigrants and refugees; and Funders Collaborative for Strong Latino Communities, awarding grants to Latino led organizations. Before joining the UN, he was a staff attorney at Community Legal Services in Philadelphia where he served as Director of the Southeast Asian Refugee Project, managing the provision of free legal aid to low-income people in Philadelphia. 

Current board service include: The Wells Fargo Regional Foundation, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Local Funding Partnerships, The Philadelphia Awards, and PECO/Exelon’s Excellence Volunteerism Awards Committee.

In July 2008, Mayor Michael Nutter appointed him to serve as a Commissioner of the Philadelphia Human Relations Commission

Past awards include: The 1982-83 Reginald Heber Smith Fellowship (Reggie) awarded by Congress through Howard University to law school graduates committed to civil rights; 1990 21st Century Trust Fellowship from the United Kingdom; 2001 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Social Justice Award from the Rutgers University School of Law; 2002 Michael Greenberg GALLOP award for leadership, activism and legal advocacy; 2007 La Justicia Award from the Hispanic Bar Association of Pennsylvania; 2007 Delaware Valley’s Most Influential Latinos from El Concilio and the Multicultural Affairs Congress. In 2003 he was named the Thomas O’Boyle Lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania School of Law, established to recognize the contributions made to students’ legal education by outstanding lawyers and judges who teach and share their experience with students. He is a 2011 recipient of the Penn Law Public Interest Supervisor/Advisor of the Year Award honoring outstanding project supervisors and advisors.

He received his BA from Loyola, MA from Georgetown, and JD from Antioch; he is also a graduate of Harvard Law School’s Negotiation Program.

Chang-Muy is the author of numerous articles dealing with immigration, refugee rights, and public health and is co-editor of the newly published manual: Social Work with Immigrants and Refugees: Legal issues, Clinical Skills and Advocacy (Springer, 2008).