Dr. Tally Kritzman-Amir was an expert on immigration law, human rights, refugees, and humanitarian law. In the US, aside from Harvard Sociology, she has held positions at Boston University, HLS, Yale University, and NYU, and in Israel she was a senior lecturer at the College of Law and Business. Tally's work, starting with her dissertation, revolved around the question of whether migrants who flee economic hardship and hunger deserve protections similar to refugees who seek to escape persecution or armed conflict. Tally challenged in her work traditional thinking in refugee law by arguing that in the 21st century forced migration is linked directly to global economic inequality, as well as to the unequal effects of climate change, and that the international law needs to account for economic migrants as well.

Tally was among the leaders in refugee law in Israel and was involved in the most prominent immigrant rights struggles of the past two decades. She supervised Legal Clinic for Migrant Rights at the College of Law and Business in Israel, first of its kind in the country. Beyond migrant rights, she was involved in tracking and documenting human rights violations in Israel and Palestine. She was known for her personal involvement and her close relationships with the migrants she helped represent. Even during the last two months of her life, Tally organized a fundraiser for a South African migrant to Israel who was in visa limbo and battling cancer with little means to support herself.

Tally was also a stellar teacher - she taught courses like "The Israeli/Palestinian Conflict: Contemporary Socio-Legal Aspects" and "Human Rights in Israel and the United States" at Harvard and courses on international law and international immigration law at Boston University School of Law. At Harvard her Q scores were always high.