Alumni

Professor Oona Hathaway and her students stand under a carved stone archway

Faculty Alumni

Stephen Preston

Stephen heads WilmerHale's Defense, National Security and Government Contracts Practice. His work includes investigations, litigation, federal procurement, civil fraud, foreign investment in the United States, cybersecurity, strategic counseling and crisis management.

Stephen is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Legal Challenges. He served until recently as General Counsel of the Department of Defense, and before that, as General Counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Stephen Wertheim

Stephen Wertheim is a historian and analyst of U.S. foreign policy. He is Director of Grand Strategy at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a think-tank he co-founded in 2019 after holding faculty positions at Columbia University and Birkbeck, University of London.

He is author of "Tomorrow, the World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy" (Harvard University Press, 2020). The book reveals how, in the lead-up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, American officials and intellectuals decided that the United States should henceforth seek military dominance across the globe. Wertheim has also published academic articles on ideas of U.S. foreign relations from the 19th century to the present, examining security policy, international law, world organization, and humanitarian intervention.

He regularly writes about current events in Foreign Affairs, the New York Review of Books, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and elsewhere. In 2020 Prospect magazine named him one of “the world’s 50 top thinkers for the Covid-19 age.”

He was previously a Research Scholar at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University and held postdoctoral fellowships at King’s College, University of Cambridge, and Princeton University. He received a PhD in History from Columbia University in 2015 and an AB summa cum laude in History from Harvard University in 2007.

Student Alumni

Sam Adelsberg

Sam Adelsberg is an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York, where he focuses on civil rights and national security cases. He serves as Co-Chief of the Criminal Division's Civil Rights Unit, and formerly was an Acting Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division. Previously, Sam served as Deputy Legal Advisor at the National Security Council in the White House and as Special Counsel at the FBI. Sam also served as Special Advisor to the Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, and as Special Assistant to the Chief Prosecutor at the Department of Defense. Sam is an intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy Reserves.

Sam received his J.D. from Yale Law School after graduating with Phi Beta Kappa honors from the University of Pennsylvania. He has served as a law clerk to Judge José A. Cabranes of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Judge Jesse M. Furman of the Southern District of New York. Sam has written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, and Politico, among other publications.

Benjamin Alter

Ben Alter is an associate in the National Security and Crisis practice at Jenner & Block, where he focuses on appellate and trial-court litigation that bears on issues of international relations, national security, and human rights. Ben’s clients have included victims of terrorism, international businesses, and former government officials. A graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School, Ben has previously worked at the U.S. Treasury Department, the Council on Foreign Relations, and Foreign Affairs magazine. He has written for The New York Times, the National Interest, The Atlantic, and Lawfare.

Jordan Blashek

Jordan Blashek is an investor and executive dedicated to advancing frontier technologies for a stronger America. As co-founder and managing partner of America’s Frontier Fund, Jordan leads the fund’s strategic investments in frontier technology sectors, focusing on innovations that bolster national security and economic competitiveness. After graduating college, Jordan joined the United States Marine Corps, serving from 2009-2014 as an infantry officer with two combat tours in the Horn of Africa and Afghanistan. Earning the title of Marine is and will always be his proudest professional accomplishment.

In 2021, Jordan co-founded America's Frontier Fund and Roadrunner Venture Studios, which are an investment fund and venture studio platform dedicated to building frontier-tech vital to America's future. In 2017, Jordan worked with former Google CEO Eric Schmidt to stand-up Schmidt Futures, a family office venture focused on leveraging technology to solve hard global challenges.

Jordan is the co-author of the bestselling nonfiction title, "Union: A Democrat, a Republican, and a Search for Common Ground" (Little Brown, 2020). He also serves on several non-profit boards, including Operation Gratitude, With Honor, and the Center for Evaluation and Counseling. Jordan holds a JD from Yale Law School, an MBA from Stanford's Graduate School of Business, and an AB from Princeton University.

John Bowers

John is an associate at Covington & Burling LLP’s Washington, DC office, where he practices in the Privacy & Cybersecurity and Technology and Communications Regulation practice groups. He graduated from Yale Law School in 2023. Prior to law school, John worked as a staff researcher at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. John earned his undergraduate degree at Harvard College, where he studied the social sciences and computer science.

Julia Brower

Julia is an associate at Covington & Burling LLP's Washington, DC office, where she practices in the International Arbitration, Litigation, and Anti-corruption/FCPA practice groups.

Julia was a junior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a paralegal in the Office of the Legal Adviser in the U.S. Department of State before law school. During law school, Julia worked in Sierra Leone with Timap for Justice, a local NGO that provides free legal assistance throughout the country, and with a law firm in Washington, D.C. She is currently clerking for Judge Karen Nelson Moore on the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. She also was a Robina Foundation Human Rights Fellowship policy adviser at the Washington, D.C. office of the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. Julia worked on thematic issues with a human rights focus--women and security, human trafficking, access to justice, and international accountability mechanisms--and managed two geographic regions, West Africa and Latin America.

Sarah Burack

Sarah is an associate in the New York office of Latham & Watkins. She graduated from Yale Law School in 2017. Prior to law school, Sarah worked as a corporate investigator at a boutique risk consultancy where she focused on anti-corruption and anti-money laundering investigations. Previously, she was a research assistant on the defense and security team of a European think tank, and contributed to studies on the defense equipment market and the coordination of national security strategies across countries. Her own academic research has covered a variety of areas, including weapons acquisition policy, immigration policy and counterterrorism strategy.

Sarah graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor’s degree in history magna cum laude in 2010, and received an MPhil with distinction in international relations from the University of Cambridge in 2011.

Mikaela Cardillo

Mikaela Cardillo is a 2024 graduate of Yale Law School interested in the intersection of law of the sea, national security, and environmental law. She holds a degree from the United States Naval Academy (2016) and served as a surface warfare officer in the U.S. Navy, deploying to the Pacific, Arabian Gulf, and Mediterranean Sea. Her military service sparked a passion for international law and public service. Last summer, she published a Note, Navigating International Law Safeguards for Submarine Cables: Charting a Course for Effective Protections, in the Yale Journal of International Law. Mikaela is currently clerking for Judge Jill Parrish of the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah.

Emily Chertoff

Emily R. Chertoff is an associate professor of law at Georgetown Law School. She studies the interactions between law, other social institutions, state agents, and regulated communities, with a focus on migration control and other physically coercive forms of state action. Her research combines theory, interview-based studies, and other qualitative methodologies to describe and explain transformations in law enforcement by the U.S. state and their effects on the public. Her scholarly articles have been published in the New York University Law Review, California Law Review, Yale Law Journal, and Texas Law Review. She regularly comments on immigration and administrative enforcement in the national and international media, including the Washington Post, NPR, and the BBC.

Before joining the academy, Emily spent a number of years doing public interest work on behalf of immigrant youth and people detained in immigration detention, including setting up a successful state-level advocacy organization in her home state of New Jersey. From 2022 to 2024, she was an academic fellow at Columbia Law School. She graduated in 2017 from Yale Law School, where she won the Jerome Sayles Hess Prize for best student in the area of international law.

Celia Choy

Celia is an appellate attorney in the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice, where she litigates criminal appeals in the courts of appeals and the Supreme Court. Previously, as a trial attorney in the Public Integrity Section, she investigated and prosecuted offenses affecting the integrity of government. Before joining the Justice Department, Celia served as a law clerk to Justice Stephen Breyer of the United States Supreme Court, Chief Judge Robert Katzmann of the Second Circuit, and Judge Jed Rakoff of the Southern District of New York and worked as a litigator in private practice.

Eric Chung

Eric Chung is a lawyer specializing in administrative law, constitutional law, legislation, and regulation, with public service in all three branches of government. He is associate chief counsel at the U.S. Department of Commerce, where he is advising the implementation of the CHIPS and Science Act, a landmark economic and national security law. In 2022, Eric served as special counsel to Chair Dick Durbin and the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee to assist with the confirmation process of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court. Eric also practiced as an appellate and public policy lawyer at Covington & Burling LLP; interned with the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Department of State, U.S. Supreme Court, and the White House; and clerked in state and federal appellate courts. Eric received his A.B., summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from Harvard College, and his J.D. from Yale Law School, where he was a recipient of the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans.

Justin Cole

Justin Cole is a recent graduate of Yale Law School and has an interest in national security policy and human rights law. A 2018 graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Justin worked for two years prior to law school as an investment management paralegal at Ropes & Gray in Boston. At Yale, Justin was an editor-in-chief for the Yale Journal of International Law and a research assistant for several professors on issues including civil rights, health policy, and immigration law. While a law student, he interned at both the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice. He recently completed a Third Circuit clerkship with Judge Thomas Hardiman, and he is currently clerking for Chief Judge Diane Sykes of the Seventh Circuit.

Rebecca Crootof

Rebecca Crootof is a professor of law at the University of Richmond School of Law and the Ethical, Legal, and Societal Implications (ELSI) Visiting Scholar (Emeritus) at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). She was the inaugural 2024 DARPA ELSI Visiting Scholar.

Dr. Crootof’s primary areas of research include technology law, international law, and torts; her written work explores questions stemming from the iterative relationship between law and technology, often in light of social changes sparked by increasingly autonomous systems, artificial intelligence, cyberoperations, robotics, and the Internet of Things. She is interested in the ways legal regimes respond to and shape technological development, particularly in the armed conflict and national security context.

Lara Dominguez

Lara is a legal fellow at MRG, engaging in advocacy on behalf of minorities and indigenous communities through strategic litigation in Europe and Africa. Prior to joining MRG, Lara worked at Three Crowns LLP and specialized in international arbitration. She received her JD from Yale Law School, where she was student director of the Immigration Legal Services Clinic, a member of the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic, and a Herbert J. Hansell student fellow at the Center for Global Legal Challenges.

She has represented clients in their asylum proceedings before U.S. immigration authorities, co-authored white papers on complex issues of international law, and published an article in the Texas Law Review on state responsibility for non-state actors in armed conflict.

Chris Ewell

Chris Ewell graduated from Yale Law School in 2022. He is currently a law clerk on the United States Court of Federal Claims and will be joining the Department of Justice Environment and Natural Resources Division in September 2025. Before his clerkship, he was a Bertha Justice Fellow at EarthRights International for two years. Chris was a Peace Corps volunteer in the Philippines prior to law school and graduated from New York University with a B.A. in International Relations and Environmental Studies.

Alexandra Francis

Alexandra Francis is a senior advisor in the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes (TFFC). Prior to joining TFFC, Alexandra was a Yale Robina Foundation Fellow at the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the International Committee of the Red Cross. From 2018-2021, Alexandra was an associate at Covington & Burling LLP, where she was a member of the Trade Controls and International Arbitration and Disputes practice groups. Alexandra graduated from Yale Law School in 2018, where she served as a student director of the Lowenstein Human Rights Clinic, student director of the Center for Global Legal Challenges, and co-president of the National Security Group. While in law school, she held internships at the Office of the White House Counsel and the State Department Office of the Legal Adviser. Prior to law school Alexandra was a junior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a Fulbright Scholar in Amman, Jordan. Born and raised in Vermont, Alexandra received her B.A. in Political Science from Davidson College and is a Harry S. Truman Scholar.

Alaa Hachem

Alaa is a third-year J.D. candidate at Yale Law School interested in international human rights and international humanitarian law. At Yale, she is involved in the Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic, the Yale Law Journal, the Yale Journal of International Law, and the Yale Society of International Law. She spent the summer of 2022 interning at an ad hoc international tribunal in The Hague, helping to investigate and prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity. Prior to law school, Alaa worked at the International Finance Corporation’s Asset Management Company, where she specialized in private equity investments in emerging markets. She graduated from McGill University in 2018 with a Bachelor of Commerce and an Honors in Investment Management.

Annie Himes

Annie Himes is a Yale Law School graduate, where she was an articles editor on the Yale Law Journal, a Coker Fellow, and a member of the Rule of Law Clinic. Before law school, Annie worked as a junior fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and spent a year as a Fulbright Scholar at Saratov State University in Saratov, Russia. Annie graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and was awarded the Harry S. Truman Scholarship. Annie clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and is currently a senior associate at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr in Washington DC.

Rekha Kennedy

Rekha is a Yale Law School graduate. She is interested in researching emerging issues in technology, economic development, and democracy promotion. Before law school, Rekha worked in various technology startups. As a commercial innovation fellow at a social impact startup in Nairobi, Kenya, she worked on financial inclusion issues in East Africa. During law school, Rekha served as a legal clerk for Senator Blumenthal on the Senate Judiciary Committee, where she drafted bills, memos, and speeches on issues ranging from social media regulation to veterans' affairs. Rekha graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Columbia University, where she holds a BA in Political Science and Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies.

Brian Kim

Brian is an associate at Covington & Burling LLP’s Washington, DC office where he practices in the firm’s CFIUS group. Prior to law school, he received his graduate degree in China Studies from Peking University where he studied as a Yenching Scholar. He earned his undergraduate degree from Princeton University, graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 2016. At YLS, he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal and Kerry Fellow with the Jackson Institute.

Christina Koningisor

Christina Koningisor is an associate professor of law at U.C. Law San Francisco (formerly U.C. Hastings), where she teaches courses on constitutional law, civil procedure, and the law of government secrecy. Her scholarship focuses on constitutional law, media law, and the law of information access and government transparency. Her articles have appeared or are forthcoming in the Columbia Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Virginia Law Review, and Yale Law Journal. She has previously served as a lawyer for the New York Times, a law clerk on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and a Fulbright fellow in Kuwait. She is a graduate of Yale Law School and Brown University.

Diana Lee

Diana is a Yale Law School graduate, where she studied the intersection of law, technology, and civil liberties. She was a member of the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic, the Veterans Legal Services Clinic, and the Yale Law Journal. Diana interned at the Wikimedia Foundation, where she assisted in-house counsel with a range of foreign law challenges to online free speech and access to knowledge. Prior to law school, Diana served as a global academic fellow at New York University Shanghai. She graduated from Bowdoin College with honors in history.

Philip Levitz

Philip Levitz serves as senior assistant solicitor general in the Office of the New York State Attorney General, where he handles and supervises appeals and other complex legal matters for the State. He previously was in private practice at Covington & Burling LLP, clerked for Judge Diana Gribbon Motz on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and, before law school, worked in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State. He earned his JD from Yale Law School, where he was an articles editor on the Yale Law Journal and the Yale Journal of International Law, and a student director of the Supreme Court Advocacy Clinic. He earned his AB, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs. His research has been published in several prominent law reviews and political science journals.

Preston Jordan Lim

Preston Jordan Lim serves as an assistant professor at the Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law. He holds an A.B. from Princeton, a Master of Global Affairs from Tsinghua University—where he studied as a Schwarzman Scholar—and a J.D. from Yale Law. He is also a doctoral student in the S.J.D. programme at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law; he has received doctoral scholarships from the Trudeau Foundation and the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, among other organizations. Prior to his academic career, he served as policy advisor to the Honourable Erin O’Toole, then Foreign Affairs Critic in the Canadian House of Commons. He also clerked for the Justices of the Court of Appeal for Ontario and Chief Justice Richard Wagner of the Supreme Court of Canada. He writes primarily on Canadian constitutional history and public international law. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in the Utah Law Review, Cornell International Law Journal, Osgoode Hall Law Journal, and UBC Law Review, among other outlets. He continues to practice law in Ontario.

Ryan Liss

Ryan is currently an assistant professor at Western University Faculty of Law. His research focuses on criminal law and public international law (including international criminal law, international human rights law, and international humanitarian law), examining the ways in which human rights construct and constrain state power in both areas. Ryan holds an undergraduate degree and a J.D. from the University of Toronto, and an LL.M. from Yale Law School. He completed his J.S.D at Yale, where he studied as a Trudeau Scholar and a SSHRC Doctoral Fellow. Prior to joining Western University, he served as an Associate-in-Law at Columbia Law School, and as a visiting fellow at the Schell Center for International Human Rights at Yale Law School and the Centre for Ethics at the University of Toronto. He clerked for Chief Justice Warren Winkler and the justices of the Court of Appeal for Ontario, and has worked with the International Criminal Court, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and the Coalition for the ICC.

Zachary Manfredi

Zachary Manfredi is a litigator, scholar, and advocate focused on immigrants’ rights, human rights, and administrative law. Most recently, he has served as Litigation and Advocacy Director at the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (ASAP), where he supervised attorneys and led nationally significant cases. In this role, he secured work authorization for hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers, obtained major Federal Tort Claims Act settlements on behalf of families separated at the border, and litigated a landmark case concerning birthright citizenship that reached the U.S. Supreme Court. He also directed ASAP’s notice-and-comment practice for nearly 30 federal regulations, shaping administrative law and policy in immigrant and worker rights.

As a scholar, Zak has published widely on human rights, international law, and political theory, with work appearing in the New York University Law Review, the Yale Journal of International Law, the London Review of International Law, and Humanity. He has co-authored influential scholarship on the laws of war and the Geneva Conventions, including work with Oona A. Hathaway on state responsibility for non-state actors and with Emily Chertoff on the law of targeting military and civilian objects. He also co-founded the ICC Observers Project, one of the first initiatives to systematically document the early proceedings of the International Criminal Court.

Zak clerked for the Honorable Justice Goodwin Liu of the California Supreme Court and previously worked as a Mary McCarthy Legal Fellow and staff attorney with UAW 2865, representing student workers and immigrants. A Rhodes Scholar, Truman Scholar, and Mellon Fellow, he holds a J.D. from Yale, an M.Phil from Oxford, and a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley.

Randi Michel

Randi received a joint JD/MPA from Yale Law School and Princeton's School of Public and International Affairs. Before graduate school, Randi worked for five years as a conflict and stabilization advisor at the U.S. Department of State, including two years in Nairobi, Kenya as the U.S. Embassy's lead on election security and violence prevention. She has also worked in the Philippines, Bangladesh, Malawi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea, and South Africa. Randi received her BA summa cum laude from Harvard in social studies.

Maggie Mills

Maggie is a 3L at Yale Law School. Before law school, Maggie graduated with honors from the United States Military Academy at West Point, majoring in Russian language and international and comparative legal studies. She spent eight years following her graduation as an aviation officer in the United States Army, serving in Alabama, Texas, South Korea, and North Carolina. At Yale Law School, Maggie is involved in the Veterans Legal Services Clinic, the Yale Journal of International Law, and the National Security Group. Maggie spent the summer of 2022 as a trainee at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, and continues to pursue an interest in international legal topics intersection with post-Soviet states.

Juan Pablo Miramontes

Juan graduated from Yale Law School in 2023, where he focused on foreign relations and international human rights law. While at Yale, he interned with the Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section of the Department of Justice, the Office of the Legal Adviser of the Department of State, and Latham & Watkins LLP. He is a notes editor for the Yale Law Journal and was an articles editor for the Yale Journal of International Law. Prior to law school, he was a human rights fellow at Perseus Strategies LLC and a research fellow at National Security Action. He graduated from Harvard College in 2017 with an honors degree in social studies and a minor in French.

Nicole Ng

Nicole is a J.D. graduated from Yale Law School in 2022. At Yale, she was co-president of the National Security Group and a member of the Peter Gruber Rule of Law Clinic. During her first summer in law school, Nicole worked at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. Prior to law school, Nicole was a research assistant and junior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where she focused on U.S.-Russian relations and Russian foreign policy issues. Nicole received a bachelor’s degree in Global Affairs and Russian and East European Studies from Yale College.

Ellen Nohle

Ellen is a JSD graduate from Yale Law School, where she earned her LL.M. degree in 2021. She is a Salzburg Cutler Fellow and a Hansell Fellow at the YLS Center for Global Legal Challenges. Her research explores the intersection between governmental authority to use force and the individual obligation to disobey orders on the use of force. Ellen has trained in the Swedish Armed Forces, worked for the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and served as legal advisor for the ICRC in Geneva and Kabul. Ellen obtained her B.A. in Law from the University of Cambridge, and graduate degrees from the University of Oxford and the University for Peace.

Jacob Noti-Victor

Jacob Noti-Victor is an associate professor of law. His research focuses on how the law impacts innovation, culture and the deployment of new technologies. His articles have appeared or are forthcoming in the Virginia Law Review, the Washington University Law Review, the Minnesota Law Review, and the Stanford Law Review.

Prior to entering academia, Noti-Victor was an intellectual property litigator at Kirkland & Ellis LLP and a law clerk for Second Circuit Judge Pierre N. Leval. He graduated from Yale Law School in 2014, where he was an Essays Editor of the Yale Law Journal, a Coker Fellow, a member of the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic and an OutLaws board member. He received an A.B. in social studies magna cum laude from Harvard College in 2009.

Sally Pei

Sally graduated from Yale Law School in 2013, where she was an articles editor of the Yale Law Journal and articles editor of the Yale Journal of International Law. She was also a member of the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Law Clinic and the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project.

After graduation, Sally clerked for Judge William Fletcher on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and served as legal adviser to Judge O. Thomas Johnson on the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal in The Hague. Sally holds a BA (Hons) degree from Cambridge University in Arabic and French.

Paulina Perlin

Paulina Perlin is an associate in Davis Polk & Wardwell’s civil litigation group, where she represents a broad range of clients in complex civil matters, with a focus on securities litigation, board of director representations, and commercial arbitration. Paulina also maintains an active pro bono practice advocating for individuals fleeing the war in Ukraine. Paulina’s scholarship has been cited by the Second Circuit and published in outlets such as the Harvard National Security Journal, the Texas International Law Journal, the Journal of National Security Law & Policy, LawFare, and Just Security.

At Yale Law, Paulina served as a Coker Fellow, student director of the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic, chapter co-director of the International Refugee Assistance Project, and co-director of the Lowenstein Project for Human Rights. She has previously worked at the UN OHCHR, where she helped implement Colombia's peace accord with the FARC, and taught political science at NYU Abu Dhabi as a Global Academic Fellow. In 2015, Paulina graduated summa cum laude with bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and political science from Wellesley College, where she also won the Barnette Miller Prize for the Best Paper in Political Science and was selected as a Fulbright scholar to Russia.

Thomas Poston

Thomas is a Yale Law School graduate. Thomas was previously a Fulbright research fellow in Cambodia and a consultant with a variety of public-sector institutions, including the U.S. Department of State and the Inter-American Development Bank. He has also worked at the Council of Europe, the European Court of Human Rights, and the Natural Resources Defense Council on a variety of international human rights and environmental challenges. A native of eastern North Carolina, Thomas received his B.A. summa cum laude from Wake Forest, where he studied international affairs and economics.

Michael Shih

Michael Shih graduated summa cum laude from the School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. As a Marshall Scholar, he received a master's in international relations from the University of Cambridge and a master's in global governance from the University of Oxford. At Yale Law School, he served as an Articles Editor on the Yale Law Journal, a Coker Teaching Fellow, and a research assistant to Professor Oona Hathaway. He reached the finals of both the Morris Tyler Moot Court of Appeals and the Barristers' Union Mock Trial Competition. After law school, he clerked for the Honorable Jeffrey S. Sutton on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit before joining the United States Department of Justice in 2015.

Julia Shu

Julia is a Yale Law School graduate. While at Yale Law School she was primarily interested in international human rights, IP, and trial advocacy. She was Student Director of the Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic and a member of the Veterans Legal Services Clinic. During her time at Yale, she has also served on the Executive Board of Yale Law Women and interned for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. Prior to law school, she studied political science at the University of Maryland, College Park and taught English in the Atacama Desert.

Aaron X. Sobel

Aaron is an associate at Arnold & Porter, where he practices foreign relations and national security law. He is an incoming law clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. At Yale, Aaron won the Burton H. Brody Prize and the Edward D. Robbins Prize, was a teaching fellow to the Brady-Johnson Grand Strategy program, and was a Moot Court semi-finalist. He spent his law school summers at the Department of Justice in the Civil Division Appellate Staff, the Department of State in the Office of the Legal Adviser, and Arnold & Porter. His work is published in the Yale Law & Policy Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review Online, Lawfare, Just Security, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and USA Today, and has been featured by the American Law Institute and NPR’s Morning Edition. He graduated from Princeton summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in public policy.

Mark Stevens

Mark graduated from Yale Law School in 2021. He graduated from Princeton University in 2013 with an A.B. in Public Policy and International Affairs and a certificate in Near Eastern Studies, and subsequently received a Master in Public Affairs from Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs in 2017. Prior to attending law school, Mark served as a fellow at the U.S. Department of State, where he focused on Middle East policy, and later worked for a humanitarian information-gathering organization in East Africa and the Middle East. At Yale, Mark is a member of the Peter Gruber Rule of Law and Lowenstein Human Rights clinics. He spent his summers in law school with the California-based Center for Justice & Accountability and with the Washington, D.C. office of Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer, LLP.

Paul Strauch

Paul is a Yale Law School graduate and also completed an MBA at the Yale School of Management. In 2016-2017, Paul served as Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Journal of International Law, and during his first law school summer he worked in the President’s Office of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. Prior to Yale, Paul worked as an investment banking compliance analyst at Goldman, Sachs, & Co. Over the course of his undergraduate studies at Dartmouth College and graduate school, he has studied and/or worked in Spain, England, the Hague, and Armenia. His research currently focuses on human rights at sea and international criminal law.

Tina Thomas

Tina is a first-generation Indian-American, born and raised in New York City. She attended Yale University for undergrad, where she majored in Political Science and International Studies. While there, she spent summers studying and working in Argentina, Venezuela, and India. After Yale, she went on to serve as a paralegal in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State. There for two years, Tina assisted in a variety of projects, including being a lead negotiator on human rights resolutions at the United Nations Human Rights Council and serving on the core team in the inaugural Universal Periodic Review of the United States' human rights record. After State, Tina enrolled at Yale Law School. While at YLS, she continued her focus on international law but also developed an interest in criminal defense. She spent her summers working for the Orleans Public Defenders, the Federal Public Defender for the District of Columbia, and Covington & Burling LLP. After graduating, she clerked for the Honorable Scott M. Matheson, Jr. on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. She will return to Covington this fall.

Peter Tzeng

Peter Tzeng is a partner at Foley Hoag LLP, where he exclusively advises and represents sovereign States on matters of international law and international organizations. He regularly litigates on behalf of States before the International Court of Justice, as well as in inter-State and investor-State arbitration. He further advises States on matters before the United Nations and other international organizations.

Peter is a recipient of the Diploma of The Hague Academy of International Law, and a graduate of Yale Law School and Princeton University. He speaks all six official languages of the United Nations (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish) at varying levels of proficiency. Peter regularly publishes and speaks on issues of international law, and has received multiple awards for his publications. He was also the author of the 2018 and 2021 Problems of the Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition.

Beatrice Walton

Beatrice Walton is an Associate at Debevoise & Plimpton, where she practices in the firm’s Litigation, International Dispute Resolution, and Public International Law Groups. In her work, she has represented States, international organizations, and private parties in a range of fora, including before the International Court of Justice, as well as in international arbitrations and in U.S. courts. Since 2023, she has also been a Visiting Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School.

Beatrice previously clerked for the Honorable Debra A. Livingston of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and the Honorable William J. Kayatta Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. She was also a Judicial Fellow at the International Court of Justice. Beatrice has authored (or co-authored) articles and short commentary in several publications, including the American Journal of International Law, the International Review of the Red Cross, and the Elgar Encyclopedia of Human Rights, among others. She received a J.D. from Yale Law School in 2018, an M.Phil. with distinction from the University of Cambridge, and an A.B. summa cum laude from Harvard College, with a citation in Russian language.

Sarah Weiner

Sarah Weiner is a Yale Law School graduate. Sarah is currently a litigation associate in the Washington, D.C., office of Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP, where she has a varied litigation practice involving representations at both the trial and appellate levels of federal and state courts. Prior to joining MTO, Sarah served as a law clerk to Justice Sonia Sotomayor of the U.S. Supreme Court, to the Honorable David S. Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and to the Honorable J. Paul Oetken of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Sarah also previously served as an attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Division, Appellate Staff. Sarah received her undergraduate degree in political science with highest distinction from the University of California, Berkeley.

Tianyi "Tian Tian" Xin

Tianyi "Tian Tian" graduated from Yale Law School in 2019 and has a broad interest in national security law and policy. Prior to law school, she served as a Military Intelligence Officer in the United States Army. She deployed to Afghanistan in 2014 as an intelligence analyst for a Special Operations task force in eastern Afghanistan and then to Iraq in 2016 as part of the counter-ISIL coalition. In her last position in the Army, she was the speechwriter to the Commanding General of III Corps and Fort Hood, Texas. Tian Tian graduated from West Point in 2011 with degrees in International Relations and International Law.

Alyssa Yamamoto

Alyssa Yamamoto is the Senior Legal and Policy Advisor at the Atlantic Council Strategic Litigation Project, which pursues innovative justice pathways for atrocity crimes and serious human rights violations. She previously served as Legal Advisor to the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism, working on human rights and gender mainstreaming in counterterrorism and national security. She also worked as an associate attorney at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, where she specialized in public international law and international arbitration. Her representations have involved litigation before the International Court of Justice and U.S. courts, including under the U.S. Alien Tort Statute, Torture Victim Protection Act, and International Organizations Immunities Act, and communications before the UN human rights treaty bodies and special procedures.

Alyssa received a J.D. from Yale Law School and A.B. from Harvard College. She was a visiting fellow at the Human Rights Center at University of Minnesota Law School; the Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies; and the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights.

Heather Zimmerman

Heather is Yale Law School graduate. She is interested in the possibilities for international human rights law and movements to challenge state violence, including the use of torture and other cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment in policing and incarceration. As a Student Director for the Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic, she works on advocating for the establishment of independent oversight of Connecticut prisons and on federal litigation challenging the abusive use of restraints against people with disabilities incarcerated in Connecticut. Prior to law school, Heather spent a decade working as a human rights advocate, community organizer, and researcher in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, India, Uganda, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Heather has an MSc in International Development and Humanitarian Emergencies from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and an MSc in Violence, Conflict, and Development from SOAS, University of London.