Healing and Recovery after Trauma (HEART) was created to provide support and representation to people who are detained at Guantánamo Bay Naval Station; people who have been released from detention at Guantánamo Bay Naval Station; people who have been unjustly detained or tortured in other locations, during and after detention; and people who have suffered from other severe traumas (collectively, “survivors”).

It supports, assists and encourages artistic expression by survivors, including arranging and sponsoring exhibitions of artworks and publication of writings.

  • Founder, President and Director; Managing Attorney

    Beth has represented Guantánamo detainees since 2005, starting while she was in private practice at corporate law firms in New York City. Her private practice focused on complex litigation, including representing generic pharmaceutical companies in litigation against brand pharmaceutical companies and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in litigation arising from the September 11, 2001, attacks. Before founding HeaRT, Beth was a senior supervising attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

  • Founder, Treasurer and Director; Director of Creative Projects

    Erin is in charge of HeaRT’s support for art by survivors of torture, and in particular the exhibition of art created by men imprisoned at Guantánamo. She is America’s only full-time professor of art crime and studies a variety of relations between art and crime, including the looting of antiquities, museum theft, art made by detainees at Guantánamo Bay, and the legalities and ethics of digital reproductions of cultural heritage. Erin has discussed these topics for the New York Times, CNN, NPR, and the Freakonomics podcast, among many others.

  • Founder; Mental Health Director

    Gail is a licensed clinical social worker, specializing in the treatment of trauma. She oversees programs that support and enhance mental health and healing. Through her trauma-sensitive and responsive private consulting practice, she delivers customized solutions to the most recognized companies in the fields of technology, healthcare, transportation, professional sports, finance, retail, media, and entertainment.

  • Ramadan Campaign Coordinator

    Luna Martinez is part of the International Program at Earthjustice. At the Center for Constitutional Rights, she worked on challenging the unlawful detentions at Guantánamo and defending the rights of Palestine solidarity advocates. Luna also worked at Palestine Legal and started a nonprofit in Zapatista communities in Chiapas, where her grandfather was a political prisoner. She has a J.D. from Berkeley Law and is one of the co-chairs of the Palestine Subcommittee of the National Lawyers Guild.

  • Chief Technology Officer

    In addition to his work with HeaRT, Jeffrey is Lead, Technical Delivery at D-Wave Systems Inc., a global leader in quantum computing systems, software and services, where he assists companies in implementing quantum powered optimization solutions. Before joining D-Wave, he was Senior Specialist at Princeton Consultants, where he helped design and develop custom enterprise software solutions that significantly improve the efficiency and efficacy of business operations. A graduate of Harvard College, Jeffrey holds a Ph.D. in astrophysics from the University of Michigan.

  • Legal Director

    Marc Falkoff is Professor of Law at Northern Illinois University College of Law, where he teaches and writes about criminal, constitutional, and civil rights law. He began representing Guantánamo detainees in 2004, when he was a litigation associate at Covington & Burling LLP. He is a graduate of Columbia Law School and holds a Ph.D. in American Literature from Brandeis University. He is a former law clerk for Judge Jack B. Weinstein of the federal district court for the Eastern District of New York and for Judge Carlos F. Lucero of the federal court of appeals for the Tenth Circuit. From 2003 to 2004 he served as Habeas Corpus Special Master in the Eastern District of New York. A book of prisoner poetry he edited, Poems from Guantánamo: The Detainees Speak, was a bestselling anthology that has been translated into a dozen languages.

  • Director

    Shane is a Senior Managing Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, where he has worked on several significant cases arising in the wake of 9/11, including CCR's challenges to the indefinite detention of men at Guantánamo and domestic immigration sweeps. He has been counsel in major CCR cases challenging the material support statute, the low rate of African-American firefighter hiring in New York City, and the NSA's warrantless surveillance program. He is a graduate of Yale Law School and a former law clerk to Judge Kermit Lipez of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Shane has been interviewed on major news outlets, including CNN, NPR, MSNBC, Al Jazeera, and CBS, among others.

  Artwork by Mansoor Adayfi