The Bernstein Fellowship was established at Yale Law School in 1997 to honor Robert Bernstein as a tireless champion of human rights. Started by Mr. Bernstein’s wife Helen and their three sons, Peter, Tom, and William, the fellowship is supported by Mr. Bernstein’s family, friends, and colleagues and administered by the Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights at Yale Law School.

Robert L. Bernstein International Human Rights Fellows

2022-2023 Fellows

Luke Connell ’22 will spend his Bernstein Fellowship year in the International Unit of the Centro de Derechos Humanos Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez A.C. (“Centro Prodh”), a leading Mexican human rights NGO. At Centro Prodh, Connell will work with collectives, groups composed of family members of disappeared persons, to collaboratively develop advocacy strategies related to the individual complaint mechanism of the U.N. Committee on Enforced Disappearances. While at Yale Law School, Connell was a member of the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic, the Peter Gruber Rule of Law Clinic, and the New Haven Legal Assistance Immigration Clinic. He was a Student Director of the Schell Center, an Executive Editor of the Yale Journal of International Law, and a participant in Jessup Moot Court. During the summers, he interned at Centro Prodh, Amnesty International – Mexico, and the European Court of Human Rights. Prior to law school, Connell worked with the International Rescue Committee in Kenya and Somalia, la 72 migrant shelter in Mexico, and Georgia Legal Services, Farmworker Rights Division. He holds a B.A. in political science and religious studies from Yale College.

Jason Gardiner ’22 will spend his Bernstein Fellowship year in Guyana working with Forest Peoples Programme, an international NGO that partners with indigenous communities and organizations. He will conduct community legal empowerment work with indigenous communities in Guyana, focusing particularly on protecting traditional lands from government-issued mining concessions. He will also partner with local organizations in their advocacy efforts to reform the statutory framework for indigenous rights protection in Guyana. During his time at Yale Law School, he was a legal director for the Yale chapter of the International Refugee Assistance Project, and he participated in the Global Health Justice Partnership and the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic. He also served on the executive board of the Yale Journal of International Law. He spent his summers working for the California Office of the Attorney General’s Healthcare Rights and Access section and the U.S. Senate Office of the Legislative Counsel. He holds a B.A. in linguistics from Brigham Young University.

Megan Hauptman ’21 will spend her Bernstein Fellowship year with the National Immigration Project (NIP-NLG). Hauptman will split her time between Washington, D.C., and Mexico City, where she will engage in strategic direct representation, resource development, and public advocacy to support those unjustly deported from the United States in vindicating their rights to seek return. Hauptman is currently completing a clerkship in the Southern District of Texas. At Yale, Hauptman participated in the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic, the Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic, the Criminal Justice Advocacy Clinic, and the Immigrant Rights Clinic at New Haven Legal Assistance. She spent her summers with the San Francisco Public Defender’s Immigration Unit and with the Special Litigation Division of the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia. Prior to law school, Hauptman worked as a paralegal at a public defender’s office. She holds a B.A. in history from Brown University. 

Tim Hirschel-Burns ’22 will spend his Bernstein Fellowship year at Oxfam America in Washington, D.C. His work will focus on ensuring human rights and corporate accountability in the mining of minerals necessary to the energy transition. During law school, Hirschel-Burns served as a Student Director of the Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic and co-founded the national organization Law Students for Climate Accountability. He interned with the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights and the Center for International Environmental Law. Prior to law school, Hirschel-Burns was a Peace Corps volunteer in Benin. He holds a B.A. in political science from Swarthmore College.

2021-2022 Fellows

Aydan Figaroa (LL.M. 2021) is spending his Bernstein fellowship year at Minority Rights Group, an organization working to secure the rights of ethnic, religious, and linguistic minorities and indigenous peoples worldwide. Aydan is based in MRG’s London office where works closely with MRG’s legal team. Aydan focuses primarily on developing a legal intervention strategy around intellectual property, cultural rights and traditional knowledge that feeds into MRG’s existing environmental justice work. During his time at Yale Law School, Aydan was an Editorial Board Member of the Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities and a member of the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic. Prior to Yale, Aydan was a lecturer in Intellectual Property at Utrecht University and was an advisor to the Dutch Council for Culture. Aydan holds an LL.B. and Research LL.M. from Utrecht University.

Megan Pearson (J.D. 2021) is spending her Bernstein Fellowship year at Accountability Counsel. Megan joins their Policy Team, which consults with international financial institutions and aid programs to make their accountability mechanisms more accessible and effective for local communities who are harmed by internationally financed development projects. Megan also pursues research on the elusiveness of meaningful remedies for victims of environmental and human rights harms. At Yale, she was a member of the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic, a board member of the Black Law Students Association, a Dean’s Advisor, and an avid Law Revue cast member. She spent her summers working at the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti and the Research Division at the European Court of Human Rights. She holds a B.A. in English from Duke University.

Anna Wherry (J.D. 2021) is spending her Bernstein Fellowship year in Bogotá, Colombia assisting human rights lawyers providing counsel to demobilized FARC combatants whose cases are before the country’s transitional court, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP). Her fellowship is sponsored by the Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI), which funds and oversees the legal team. She helps prepare respondents’ cases and research relevant human rights and humanitarian law. Outside the court, she advocates for demobilized individuals’ safety and economic security, helping ensure successful completion of the court’s legal process. At Yale, Anna participated in the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic and the Global Health Justice Partnership’s Sex Worker Health and Rights Project. She was a summer intern at the Federal Defenders for the Eastern District of New York and at Brooklyn Defender Services Family Defense Practice. Anna is also completing a Ph.D. in Anthropology at Johns Hopkins University. As a Marshall Scholar, she attained master’s degrees from the University of Oxford’s Refugee Studies Centre and the University of Edinburgh’s Department of Social Anthropology. Anna received a dual B.A. in Public Health Studies and Anthropology from Johns Hopkins University.

2020-2021 Fellows

Laith Aqel was a Bernstein Fellow at the Global Echo Litigation Center, a non-profit legal organization dedicated to bringing strategic human rights litigation. Based in the Middle East, Laith worked with local communities to build capacity and develop skills to address human rights abuses and support accountability efforts. At Yale, Laith was a member of both the Peter Gruber Rule of Law Clinic and the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic. He also served as Executive Editor for the Yale Journal of International Law, Policy & Legal Director for the International Refugee Assistance Project, Student Director of the Center for Global Legal Challenges, and Chair of the Middle Eastern and North African Law Students’ Association. Laith was also a 2018–2019 Fox International Fellow, spending a year conducting research at Boğaziçi Üniversitesi in Istanbul. He holds a B.A. in Social Research and Public Policy from New York University Abu Dhabi.

Patricia Cruz Marín (LL.M. 2020) spent her Bernstein Fellowship year at the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL), an organization that accompanies victims of serious human rights violations through the different stages of procedure in the Inter-American System of Human Rights. She worked in the elaboration of a report on the compliance of the judgments of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and worked in the investigation and preparation of legal strategies for the hearings related to compliance of the judgments of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Currently, she is pursuing the JSD degree at YLS on the topic of the impact of the Inter-American System of Human Rights. Patricia holds a LL.B. from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico (UNAM) and a B.A. in Political Science from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de Mexico (ITAM). Prior to Yale, Patricia worked elaborating research in the area of Human Rights and Constitutional Law, and was the Legal Coordinator of the Clinic Against Human Trafficking of the ITAM.

Talya Lockman-Fine (J.D. 2020) is currently a Consultant in the Environmental and Social Policy and Risk Department of the International Finance Corporation. She spent her Bernstein Fellowship year working at the International Senior Lawyers Project, focusing on building government legal capacity for sustainable development and socioeconomic rights. During law school, Talya was a member of the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic, Reproductive Rights and Justice Project, and Community and Economic Development Clinic, and was Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal. Talya spent summers working for Koe Koe Tech in Yangon, Myanmar and for the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society in Richmond, Virginia. Prior to law school, Talya worked for Dalberg Advisors in Dakar, Senegal and New York City. She holds a B.A. in Ethics, Politics, and Economics from Yale College. 

Paul Rink (J.D. 2019) was based in Eugene, Oregon as a Bernstein Fellow for Our Children’s Trust, a nonprofit public interest law firm that provides young people from diverse backgrounds with strategic, campaign-based legal services aimed at securing their rights to a safe climate. During his time as a fellow, he supported existing youth-based climate change cases in Canada and Mexico and helped identify and develop cases in other foreign jurisdictions. In addition, he assisted legal advocacy before international human rights law bodies and mechanisms. Paul has conducted thorough research and written extensively on youth-driven climate change litigation. An article he wrote on this topic received a silver medal from the International Sustainable Development Law Centre in the 2018 Climate Law and Governance Day essay competition. He also contributed a chapter entitled “Helping Kids Stand Up for Their Rights: The Role of Climate Change Litigation” to the 2019 publication A Better Planet: 40 Big Ideas for a Sustainable Future. Paul earned joint degrees from Yale Law School and Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies in 2019. He is currently completing a yearlong Fox International Fellowship in Mexico where he has been researching the influence of private enterprises on international environmental law.

2019-2020 Fellows

Taylor Burgess (LL.M 2019) is spending her fellowship year at the British Pregnancy Advisory Service in London, where she will focus on Long-Acting Reversible Contraception (“LARC”) delivery programs in the United Kingdom, reporting on women’s experiences of the expanding LARC programs and scrutinizing LARC delivery against the United Kingdom’s commitment to the right to respect for private and family life in the European Convention of Human Rights and the protections in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Overall, she aims to use human rights principles to push the United Kingdom to maximize LARC’s potential to empower women and guard against the risks of exploitation. At Yale, Taylor was a member of the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic and worked with the HAVEN Medical-Legal Partnership. Prior to Yale, Taylor worked as an Assistant Crown Counsel in the New Zealand Crown Law Office and as a clerk to the President of the New Zealand Court of Appeal. Taylor holds a Bachelor of Laws (Honours) and Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from the University of Auckland.

Britta Redwood (J.D. 2017) is an Acting Assistant Professor of Lawyering at NYU Law School. Britta spent her fellowship year at the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, an independent non-profit legal organization dedicated to using litigation to enforce human rights law around the world. During her time at ECCHR, Britta worked within the Organization’s International Crimes and Accountability Program and focused on litigation against Syrian government officials accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. She also worked on a submission before the European Court of Human Rights in the Hanan v. Germany proceeding. Prior to her fellowship, Britta worked at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, in New York. During her time at Yale Law School, Britta was Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Journal of International Law and a member of the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic. She holds a A.B. in Philosophy from Princeton University.

Andrew Udelsman (J.D. 2017) will be a Bernstein Fellow with the Texas Civil Rights Project in Alamo, Texas. His work will focus on combating the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy, which calls for criminal prosecution of all individuals caught illegally crossing the Southwest border, including immigrants with valid asylum claims. He hopes to challenge the “zero-tolerance” itself as well as the en masse procedures in place to enforce it. At Yale, Andrew was a member of the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic and a student director of the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic. Following graduation, he clerked at the Supreme Court of Nevada and the United States District Court of Guam. He holds a B.A. in Sociology from Yale.

2018-2019 Fellows

Lara Domínguez (J.D. 2016) is spending her fellowship year at Minority Rights Group (MRG), an organization that promotes the rights of minorities and indigenous peoples. Lara is based in London, working closely with MRG’s Legal Director on strategic litigation before international human rights tribunals. Lara is focusing primarily on advancing MRG’s land rights cases in Africa, including travelling to the upcoming African Commission session in Egypt to advocate on behalf of MRG's pending cases. She has also traveled to Uganda to assess the viability of potential cases on behalf of two indigenous communities there. During her fellowship, she has drafted amicus briefs on minority and indigenous issues before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights and published an article on ILO Convention No. 169. Prior to her fellowship, Lara worked at Three Crowns LLP, a small firm that specializes in international litigation. At the Law School, Lara was student director of the Immigration Legal Services Clinic, a member of the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic, and a student fellow at the Center for Global Legal Challenges.

Kyle (Kai) Elliot Fees (J.D. 2018) is Research and Advocacy Fellow to E. Tendayi Achiume, the UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance. Through this Robert L. Bernstein International Human Rights Fellowship position, Kai supplements Special Rapporteur Achiume’s capacity to conduct interdisciplinary and international human rights legal research. His research has strengthened the mandate’s thematic reports, as well as its communications, advocacy, and amicus practice. During his fellowship, Kai also serves as a UCLA School of Law visiting scholar, a research affiliate at the Promise Institute for Human Rights, and an International Human Rights Clinic project supervisor. His past human rights law research has supported, among others, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, the ACLU Human Rights Program, the Southern Africa Litigation Centre, and the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre. Kai is a graduate of Yale Law School, Arizona State University (M.A. in Social Justice and Human Rights), and the University of Arizona (B.A., summa cum laude, in Philosophy). While at Yale, he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Human Rights & Development Law Journal and as a student director of the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic and the Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights.

Julia Wang (J.D. 2018) is spending her fellowship year at the Center for Reproductive Rights’ office in Geneva, Switzerland. Julia’s work focuses on the legal barriers that undocumented migrant women face in accessing sexual and reproductive health services in Europe. She is also contributing to the Center’s advocacy work to address regressive legislative restrictions on the access to abortion in countries such as Poland. At Yale, Julia was a member of the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic. She served as a student director of both the Lowenstein Clinic and the Orville H. Schell Jr. Center for International Human Rights. Julia is the founder and president of the Immigrant History Initiative, a non-profit organization that creates and provides immigrant-focused history curricula to heritage and language schools. Before law school, Julia was a Gates Scholar at Cambridge University, where she received her MPhil in Modern European History. She holds an A.B. in History from Harvard.

Evan Welber Falcón (J.D. 2018) is currently is serving as a Legal Fellow in the litigation team at the Knight First Amendment Institute, where he helps the Institute defend the freedoms of expression and the press in the digital age through strategic litigation focusing on free expression, government transparency, surveillance, and new technologies. Prior to his current role, he served as a Staff Attorney at the American Bar Association's Justice Defenders Program, where he helped persecuted human rights defenders who face retaliation for their advocacy efforts seek accountability for their persecution in national and international judicial fora. He also investigated atrocity crimes as a Human Rights Officer at the UN Peacekeeping Mission in the Central African Republic. He served as a Bernstein Fellow in the Accountability, Liberty, and Transparency (ALT) Division at the Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI), where his work focused on litigation and advocacy aimed at resisting attacks on civic space as well as accountability for torture and extrajudicial killings in states' national security and counterterrorism programs. Prior to his fellowship, he researched international human rights, humanitarian, and criminal law issues for judges at the apex courts of Brazil, Hong Kong, and Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as at the International Criminal Court. He has worked in 16 countries across 5 continents and has studied 17 languages. 

2017-2018 Fellows

Conor Casey (LL.M. 2017) takes seminars in Constitutional Law and Legal skills at the School of Law at Trinity College. Conor has had work published on constitutional law and theory in the Irish Jurist, Dublin University Law Journal and International Journal of Constitutional Law. He spent his Bernstein fellowship year at the Mercy Law Resource Centre (MLRC), an independent law centre dedicated to providing free legal advice and representation for those who are homeless or threatened with homelessness. At MLRC, Conor was a research and policy officer; his duties included assisting the center’s advocacy and policy objectives in relation to utilizing international and supranational law to promote domestic legal change. In 2017, Conor graduated with an LL.M degree from Yale Law School, where he was awarded a Walter W. Oberreit Memorial Fund Scholarship. Prior to Yale, Conor spent a year working as a legal researcher to a Senior Counsel of the Bar of Ireland and completed an LL.B. (Law) degree with first-class honours in 2015 at Trinity College Dublin. During his time in Trinity, he was elected a non-foundation scholar.

Claire Kim (J.D. 2017) is currently working as a law clerk at the D.C. Court of Appeals. She spent her fellowship year at the Center for Reproductive Rights in Washington D.C. – a global legal advocacy organization with expertise in both U.S. constitutional and international human rights law. Claire was involved in both legal and policy work, engaging with the Center's day-to-day federal policy advocacy as well as conducting in-depth analysis on international legal frameworks on reproductive rights and health during armed conflict. At Yale, Claire served as a Student Director of the Lowenstein Clinic. She was an Executive Editor for the Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal and a Submissions Editor for the Yale Journal of International Law. Claire also served as an Outreach Director for the International Refugee Assistance Program. Claire holds a B.A. in Government (International Relations) and History modified with Russian from Dartmouth College.

Sanya Kumar (LL.M. 2017) spent her fellowship year at Reprieve, an international human rights organization based in London that aims to abolish the death penalty or restrict its application worldwide. Her work focused on South Asian female migrant workers employed in the Gulf States who have been sentenced to death. At Yale, Sanya was an Inlaks Scholar and a Lillian Goldman Perpetual Scholar. She was part of the Lowenstein Clinic and worked with the Capital Assistance Project and the Yale Journal of Law & Feminism. During law school, she was also actively involved in various law reform initiatives: she assisted the Law Commission of India with a project involving review of the criminal justice system and its report on the death penalty, and she worked with the Government of Delhi on issues relating to amendments to rape laws and juvenile justice legislations. Before coming to Yale, Sanya received her law degree from National Law University, Delhi, where she was a Senior Student Fellow at the Centre for Constitutional Law, Policy and Governance.

2016-2017 Fellows

Daniel Hessel (J.D. 2016) is currently a Clinical Instructor at Harvard Law School's Election Law Clinic, where he works with students to litigate voting rights cases. He previously litigated at the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Campaign Legal Center, and was a law clerk on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. He spent his fellowship year at EarthRights International’s Mekong regional office in Chiang Mai, Thailand. His work focused on the design and implementation of community-driven operational level grievance mechanisms for corporate accountability.  While in law school, Daniel was a Student Director of the Schell Center and the Lowenstein Clinic.

Asaf Lubin (LL.M. 2015, J.S.D. 2020) is an Associate Professor of Law at Indiana University Maurer School of Law and a Fellow at IU’s Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research (CACR). He is additionally an affiliated fellow at Yale Law School’s Information Society Project, a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, and a visiting Scholar at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Federmann Cyber Security Research Center. Dr. Lubin’s research centers around the intersection of law and technology, particularly as it relates to the regulation of cybersecurity harms, liabilities, and insurance as well as policy design around governmental and corporate surveillance, data protection, and internet governance. His work draws on his experiences as a former intelligence analyst, Sergeant Major (Res.), with the IDF Intelligence Branch as well as his vast practical training and expertise in national security law and foreign policy. Dr. Lubin spent his fellowship year at Privacy International (PI) in London, where his duties included conducting targeted research for ongoing cases and interventions before the European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights, the European Court of Justice, and the U.K. Investigatory Powers Tribunal. Prior to his studies at Yale Law School, Asaf completed a dual degree in Law and International Relations (LL.B./B.A, magna cum laude, ‘14) at Hebrew University of Jerusalem and attended The Hague Academy of International Law. Dr. Lubin has previously written on and taught seminars in public and private international law, cybersecurity and cyber risk management, tort law, international human rights and humanitarian law, and criminal procedure and counterterrorism. He has published with the Harvard International Law Journal, the Harvard National Security Journal, the Yale Journal of International Law, and the Chicago Journal of International Law, and written for Just Security and Lawfare.

Chika Okafor (J.D. 2015) is currently a Ph.D. Candidate in Economics at Harvard University. Beforehand, Chika served as a Bernstein Fellow with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (at the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide). In this role, he supported former Special Assistant to the President Stephen Pomper in building a report on the Obama Administration’s atrocity response efforts and aided Ambassador Stephen Rapp in an effort to strengthen international commissions of inquiry. Chika also contributed to the Center’s Early Warning Project, which alerts policy makers and the public to locations where the risk of mass violence is greatest. Before this position, Chika worked in London as an attorney with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP. During law school, he co-wrote a Request for Precautionary Measures through the Lowenstein Clinic that was submitted to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on behalf of victims of political violence, extrajudicial killings, arson, and miscarried legal proceedings in Haiti. As a Kirby Simon Human Rights Fellow at the European Court of Human Rights, Chika worked with the Court’s Research Division and Judge András Sajó. Chika also spent a summer with the NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund in Washington D.C. Before law school, he was a project manager for “Culture of Calm,” an ambitious violence prevention effort in Chicago featured in The New York Times and NPR. Chika has also worked as a consultant with McKinsey & Company. He earned a B.A. in Economics with Honors from Stanford University in 2007.

2015-2016 Fellows

Sharanya Kanikkannan (J.D. 2011) works as a Legal and Policy Advisor at AIDS-Free World, a high-level advocacy organization. Sharanya is currently working on the organization’s Code Blue Campaign to end impunity for sexual abuse by United Nations personnel through independent accountability. Her role involves research, analysis, and policy recommendations, as well as supervising students and representing the organization at think tanks, academic events, and to international media outlets. Sharanya spent the latter half of her Bernstein Fellowship with AIDS-Free World, after spending the first half with a Haitian human rights group. Prior to her fellowship, Sharanya worked for the UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, as a project manager to increase access to justice for sexual violence victims, and later conducting monitoring of grave human rights violations in ongoing conflicts. She has also worked as a consultant for the Provedoria (national ombudsman) for human rights in Timor-Leste, supported by a grant from the Yale Initiative for Public Interest Law, and as a gender-based violence consultant with international non-governmental organizations. She is an alumna of the Lowenstein Clinic, the Jerome N. Frank Domestic Violence Clinic, and the Yale Visual Law Project. She edited for the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, the Yale Journal of International Law, and the Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal. Prior to Yale, Sharanya studied international development and economics at the University of Oregon.

Allana Kembabazi (J.D. 2015) works at the Initiative for Social Economic Rights (ISER), where she uses targeted litigation and advocacy to advance the right to health in Uganda, with a particular focus on marginalized groups and people with disabilities. She is also a Humanity in Action Senior Fellow. Allana also spent her fellowship year at ISER. Before coming to the organization, Allana was a foreign law clerk at the Constitutional Court of South Africa. During law school, Allana was a member of the Lowenstein Clinic, co-president of the Yale Society of International Law, a Lillian Goldman Perpetual Scholar, Executive Editor of the Yale Journal of International Law, editor on the Yale Human Rights and Development Journal, co-director of the Summer Public Interest Fund Student Contribution, community service chair of the Yale Black Law Students Association, and a member of the Africa and Law Policy Association. She was also a Global Health Justice Student Fellow and a member of the Global Health Justice Practicum, where she co-authored a report advocating for access to Hepatitis C medication in low and middle-income countries. In her summers, she used litigation and advocacy to advance human rights at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, the ACLU Human Rights Project and as a Kirby Simon Summer Human Rights Fellow at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Allana received a Bachelor of Arts in Government from Wesleyan University, CT in 2011.

Ryan Thoreson (J.D. 2014) is a research in the LGBT Rights Program at Human Rights Watch and an assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong. His scholarly research examines how activists and social movements shape human rights law and practice through their advocacy. This work has focused particularly on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights, both transnationally and in the Philippines, South Korea, South Africa, and the United States, as well as international law, antidiscrimination law, sexual and reproductive rights, children's rights, and legal anthropology. Prior to joining the faculty at HKU, Ryan was a clinical fellow in the Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic at Yale Law School. He is the author of Transnational LGBT Activism: Working for Sexual Rights Worldwide (2014). He clerked for the Honorable Scott M. Matheson of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, and is a member of the New York State Bar. Ryan holds a JD from Yale Law School, a DPhil in anthropology from the University of Oxford, and a BA in government and studies of women, gender, and sexuality from Harvard University.

2014-2015 Fellows

Megan Corrarino (J.D. 2013) is Managing Editor of Just Security and a Research Scholar at New York University School of Law. She previously worked as a litigation associate at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, where she specialized in international dispute resolution and complex commercial litigation and maintained an active pro bono practice focusing on public international law and international law in U.S. courts. From 2014 to 2016, Megan was a Bernstein Fellow at Human Rights First, where she authored appellate amicus briefs on issues of international law, including in refugee rights cases, Guantánamo litigation, and ATS suits, and engaged in policy work, including leading Human Rights First’s collaboration with Argentine human rights groups to successfully push the U.S. government to declassify documents related to activities during the Argentine military dictatorship. From 2013 to 2014, Megan clerked for the Honorable Susan P. Graber of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Megan received an M.P.A. from Princeton University in 2013 and a B.A. with honors and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Chicago in 2007, and was a 2008 Fulbright Fellow to Brazil.

Kyle Delbyck (J.D. 2014) is currently working as a consultant with TRIAL International's Bosnia office, which advocates on behalf of victims of the Bosnian war. Kyle has written a range of position papers and reports geared towards realizing wartime victims' right to redress, and is now working on developing war crimes sentencing guidelines for the Bosnian judiciary. Kyle first worked with TRIAL International as a Bernstein Fellow. Kyle has also worked at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. At the Law School, Kyle was a member of the Lowenstein Clinic and co-leader of the ECCC project, which provided research and writing assistance to judges at Cambodia’s war crimes court. Kyle spent both summers abroad on Kirby Simon Fellowships, the first with the Office of the Prosecutor at the Cambodian tribunal and the second in Northern Ireland with the Pat Finucane Centre. Her third year, Kyle participated in the Israeli-Palestinian claims commission project, traveling to Israel/Palestine to study the use of compensation mechanisms in a potential peace agreement. Kyle earned a B.A. in History with Honors from Scripps College in 2009.

Stephanie (Kim) Gee (J.D. 2014) is currently the Deputy U.S. Legal Director at the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), where she supports a rapidly growing team as they deliver client-centered and trauma-informed legal services to displaced individuals seeking pathways to long-term safety in the United States. She previously supervised IRAP's legal casework and operations in Amman as the Jordan Office Director. Prior to joining IRAP, she spent two years as a Bernstein Fellow with the Refugee Rights Program at Human Rights Watch, where her work was focused on the right to education, access to asylum, and global responsibility-sharing amidst unprecedented levels of displacement. At the Law School, Stephanie was a student director of the Lowenstein Clinic, a student director of the Schell Center, and an editor for the Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal. She spent her summers as a Kirby Simon Fellow with IRAP in Amman, the Mental Disability Advocacy Center in Budapest, and the Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coalition in Washington, D.C.

2013-2014 Fellows

Mytili Bala (J.D. 2009) is a research attorney for the Hon. William S. Dato, California Court of Appeal in San Diego. Outside of work, she writes about war crimes accountability, enforced disappearance, minority rights, domestic legal reforms, and transitional justice in post-war Sri Lanka. As current president of the South Asian Bar Association of San Diego, Mytili recently launched an Afghan Outreach Project aimed at helping resettled Afghan judges and lawyers build connections and seek employment in their new legal communities.  From 2013 to 2015, Mytili spent her Bernstein fellowship at the Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA), where she worked on transitional justice projects in Sri Lanka and pending Alien Tort Statute and Torture Victim Protection Act litigation in U.S. courts. Mytili was a Nexus Fund Fellow in 2015 at the Centre for Human Rights and Development in Colombo, Sri Lanka, where she advised the legal team on ongoing mass graves litigation. She taught human rights at San Diego State University in 2016. During law school, Mytili learned about Chile's post-Pinochet transition as a Linkages Fellow, served on the Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal, and helped with anti-torture advocacy as a Kirby Simon Summer Human Rights Fellow at People's Watch in Madurai, India.

Carrick Flynn (J.D. 2011) is the Assistant Director of the Governance of AI Program at the Future of Humanity Institute within the University of Oxford. Previously, he served as a Lecturer in Law for the LL.M program in Human Rights and Criminal Law at Jimma University in Ethiopia. He also worked as a legal consultant at the Asia Foundation in Timor-Leste. Carrick spent his fellowship year at the Human Rights Law Network (HRLN) in New Delhi, India and Suaram in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia. At HRLN he worked on a variety of projects related to the right to health. At Suaram, he focused his work on civil and political rights, especially the increased use of the Sedition Act to silence dissent. While at the Law School, Carrick served as a submissions editor for the Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal and as an editor for the Yale Journal of International Law. He also advised asylum seekers with the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project. Carrick earned a B.A. summa cum laude from the University of Oregon with a double major in Economics and International Studies, emphasizing the economic development of sub-Saharan Africa.

Ignacio Mujica (LL.M. 2013) currently works in Chile at Vergara Galindo Correa Abogados, focusing on criminal law and government investigations. Ignacio spent his fellowship year working in the Crimes Against Humanity Program of Human Rights First, where he focused on establishing the identities of the networks of states, corporations, and individuals that provide material support to groups that perpetrate mass atrocities, and on the domestic and international actions that can be taken to disrupt those networks. Ignacio, a native Chilean, came to Yale Law School as a Fulbright Scholar and studied international human rights law, international humanitarian law and international criminal law. Before coming to Yale, he worked both in academic research and in litigation on human rights in Chile, with a particular emphasis on transitional justice and criminal law. Ignacio holds an LL.B. degree from the University of Chile.

2012-2013 Fellows

Efrén C. Olivares (J.D. 2008) is the Deputy Legal Director for Immigrant Justice at the Southern Poverty Law Center, where he leads a team of lawyers and advocates working to end immigrant detention, defend the rights of immigrant workers, and seek justice for immigrant communities in the South and beyond. Before coming to SPLC, he directed the Racial and Economic Justice Program Director at the Texas Civil Rights Project, where he handled litigation focused on immigrants’ rights, ranging from challenging family separations, to representing low-income landowners in condemnation cases related to the border wall. Efrén has worked with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) on country reports documenting human rights violations in Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras. Efrén spent his fellowship year at the IACHR, where he worked on cases and requests for precautionary measures relating to indigenous peoples’ rights in the context of large infrastructure projects affecting their territories. At Yale, he was a Student Director of the Schell Center, a member of the Lowenstein Clinic and the Criminal Defense Clinic, and an Articles Editor of the Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal. After graduation, he worked at Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P. in Houston. Efrén earned a B.A. in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 2005, where he graduated summa cum laude. He is the author of the forthcoming book “My Boy Will Die of Sorrow: A Memoir of Immigration from the Front Lines” (Hachette, 2022). 

Katherine Reisner (J.D. 2011) is currently Senior Policy Advisor in the New York City Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs. Previously she served in the Obama Administration as a Counselor to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) where she worked on refugee, immigration, and related national security law and policy issues. She then helped stand up the immigration and DHS oversight portfolios for Senator Kamala Harris. The Bernstein fellowship enabled Katherine to begin working at the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP). As IRAP's Policy Director, she helped draft and pass federal legislation regarding overseas refugee resettlement and the Special Immigrant Visa programs. She also provided direct representation to refugee clients in complex emergency situations, managed IRAP’s impact litigation, and supervised students at IRAP’s law school chapters across the country. Before joining IRAP, she clerked for Judge Michael Daly Hawkins on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She has also served as a Visiting Clinical Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School. Katherine is a graduate of Brown University and the London School of Economics and Political Science, in addition to the Law School.

Rupali Sharma (J.D. 2012) is currently Senior Counsel and Director at the Lawyering Project, which aims to improve access to reproductive healthcare in the U.S. through litigation using an intersectional framework. She was previously a Legal Fellow at the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR). Rupali has clerked for Chief Judge R. Guy Cole, Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and Judge Matthew F. Kennelly of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. She spent her Bernstein fellowship year at CRR, where she helped challenge Ireland’s abortion ban. As a law student, Rupali served as a student director of the Immigration Legal Services clinic, was a Managing Editor of the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, and interned with the Hon. Mr. Justice Dalveer Bhandari of the Supreme Court of India. Before law school, Rupali provided direct services to recent immigrants living with domestic violence. Rupali graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Northwestern University.

2011-2012 Fellows

Erin Evers (J.D. 2011) is currently working with Mobilization for Justice and for the Urban Justice Center Mental Health Law Project. Erin has worked at numerous human rights organizations throughout the Middle East, including the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey in Izmir and Diyarbakir, the Cairo office of Human Rights Watch, the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (Cairo), and the Nadim Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence (Cairo). From 2012 to 2016, she worked as a researcher for Human Rights Watch in Baghdad: she wrote reports on issues such as the abuse of women in Iraqi prisons and at the hands of Iraq's counterterrorism service and ISIS's abuses during its takeover of Mosul. Erin spent her Bernstein fellowship working with the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) in Egypt, where she provided direct assistance to asylum-seekers. Between her second and third years of law school, Erin took a leave of absence and spent three years in Egypt, studying Arabic and working for an organization that provides legal and psychiatric services to torture victims. While at Yale, Erin was a member of Lowenstein Clinic, a research assistant for Professor Jim Silk, an editor for the Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal. She also completed substantial research projects comparing the use of judicial activism as a tool to effect democratization and political change in Egypt and Pakistan and on the effects of U.S. foreign assistance in Egypt. Erin earned a B.A. from New York University and was a Center for Arabic Studies Abroad Fellow in Cairo for two years.

Lauren Oleykowski (J.D. 2011) is a Technical Advisor for Vulnerable Children with Catholic Relief Services. Her work focuses on case management and parenting support to reduce violence against children, particularly those affected by HIV/AIDS. Lauren spent her Bernstein fellowship year in Port au Prince, Haiti, implementing a community-based child protection program funded by UNICEF: she helped develop children’s rights education campaigns with local communities and trainings for school authorities and teachers on preventing and responding to cases of child abuse and exploitation. At the Law School, Lauren served as a student director of the Lowenstein Clinic; within the clinic, she worked on projects involving human trafficking, economic and social rights, and global food security. Prior to law school, Lauren worked in West Africa for three years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Guinea and with the American Refugee Committee in Sierra Leone and earned a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from Rutgers University.

Stephen Poellot (J.D. 2011) is currently the Legal Director of the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), where he oversees IRAP’s direct legal services for refugees and visa applicants outside of the United States. As a law student, Stephen was a founding director of IRAP, which organizes law students and lawyers to assist refugees and persecuted individuals through direct legal services, litigation, and systemic advocacy. He also teaches a seminar on refugee law at Fordham Law School and an experiential learning class at Yale Law School for students completing IRAP casework. Stephen spent his first Bernstein fellowship year (2011-12) at the Refugee Legal Aid Project in Cairo, Egypt, and he received an extension of his Bernstein fellowship to join IRAP. Stephen has also worked at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, American University in Cairo’s Center for Migration and Refugee Studies, and the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board. He received his B.A. from Columbia University.

Chelsea Purvis (J.D. 2011) is an advocacy consultant based in London, working with humanitarian organizations to drive policy change. Most recently, she led Mercy Corps' advocacy around the UN Food Systems Summit. Previously, Chelsea was Senior Policy and Advocacy Officer at the International Rescue Committee. Chelsea spent the first year of her Bernstein Fellowship year at Interights, the International Centre for the Legal Protection of Human Rights, supporting litigation and capacity development on the rights of women, sexual minorities, and people with disabilities. She spent the second year at Minority Rights Group International, where she engaged in litigation and advocacy on the rights of minorities and indigenous peoples. While at Yale Law School, Chelsea served as Student Director of the Lowenstein Clinic, the Immigration Legal Services Clinic, the Temporary Restraining Order Project, and the Schell Center. Chelsea attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, earning a master’s degree in Economic and Social History, and earned her B.A. from Yale.

2010-2011 Fellows

Itamar Mann-Kanowitz (LL.M. 2010 and J.S.D. 2016) is a senior lecturer at the University of Haifa Faculty of Law, Israel, where he teaches international law and researches human rights, refugee and migration law, international criminal law, national security, and legal and political theory. He is the author of Humanity at Sea: Maritime Migration and the Foundations of International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2016). Itamar also provides legal advice on issues related to his areas of research and is currently a member of the legal action committee at Global Legal Action Network. Itamar spent his fellowship working as a consultant for Human Rights Watch and the Open Society Justice Initiative on issues related to refugee law in Europe. After attending Yale Law School, he briefly practiced human rights and criminal defense law and served as the national security law fellow at Georgetown Law Center for three years. Itamar holds an L.L.B. from Tel Aviv University.

Thomas Stutsman (J.D. 2010) is an attorney in the Office of the Pardon Attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice. Thomas spent his fellowship year at the Vera Institute of Justice, where he worked with Vera’s Chinese partners to expand Chinese scholars’ and practitioners’ capacity to use empirical methods to test justice reforms that advance human rights and the rule of law. While at the Law School, Thomas served as a research assistant for John Donohue, Nancy Gertner, and Kate Stith. He also served as a research assistant and a student fellow at the Yale China Law Center, and drafted a report on juvenile justice in China as a participant in the Lowenstein Human Rights Project. Thomas dedicated his first law school summer to working on criminal procedure reform at the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association in Tbilisi, Georgia, and his second summer to studying the relationship between criminal punishment and political legitimacy in non-democratic countries. During his third year of law school, he served as a submissions editor for the Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal. Thomas holds an LL.M. from Sichuan University Law School and a B.A. from Minnesota State University.

2009-2010 Fellows

Tendayi Achiume (J.D. 2008) is the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance and an Assistant Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law. At UCLA, she is a core faculty member of the Promise Institute for International Human Rights, the Critical Race Studies Program and the Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy. Her research and teaching interests lie in international human rights law, international refugee law, and international migration law. Before coming to UCLA, she was a litigation associate at the New York office of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP. In 2016, she was appointed to co-chair the 2016 Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law. Tendayi spent her Bernstein Fellowship year working with Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) in its Johannesburg Refugee and Migrant Rights Project. In addition to providing direct legal services to refugees and migrants from across the continent, she was also involved in various advocacy projects, particularly on issues relating to Zimbabwean refugees and migrants in South Africa. Previously, she clerked for Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke and Justice Yvonne Mokgoro on the Constitutional Court of South Africa. In law school, Tendayi was a member of the Lowenstein Clinic. She earned her B.A. from Yale University.

Stratos Pahis (J.D. 2009) is counsel in the New York office of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP where he represents clients in international commercial and investor–state disputes. Stratos is also a lecturer in law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he teaches a course on international arbitration. In 2016, Stratos took a year sabbatical from the firm to teach law and economics at the Universidad de San Andres in Buenos Aires and to conduct research into sovereign debt and investment arbitration at the European University Institute in Florence. Stratos spent his fellowship year (2009-2010) at the International Commission of Jurists in Geneva, where he researched and drafted a report on the need to interpret international investment agreements in harmony with human rights norms and the urgency of enhancing the transparency of investor-State arbitrations.

Katherine Wiltenburg Todrys (J.D. 2007) is the author of Black Snake: Standing Rock, the Dakota Access Pipeline, and Environmental Justice, which was published in June 2021. She also serves as a member of the policy and New York executive committees of Human Rights Watch (HRW) and as a pro bono attorney representing children seeking asylum for the Safe Passage Project. Previously, she was a researcher in the Health and Human Rights division at HRW, where she documented health conditions and hard labor in Ugandan prisons and police abuses against sex workers in New York City. Kate also spent her fellowship year at HRW, researching health conditions and human rights violations in Zambian prisons. After graduating from the Law School, Kate worked with the Millennium Villages Project at Columbia University on an HIV and reproductive health patients’ rights project sponsored by the Yale Student Initiative for the Public Interest; she subsequently worked as a consultant with HRW researching access to treatment for HIV-positive migrants. While in law school, she participated in the Lowenstein Clinic, served as a research assistant for Professor Oona Hathaway, and was Notes Development Editor for the Yale Law Journal. Kate received an A.B. from Harvard University.

2008-2009 Fellows

Kristina Baehr (J.D. 2008) practices at a trial litigation firm, McKool Smith, in Austin, TX. Previously, she served as a law clerk for the Hon. Judge Nancy Gertner in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts. Kristina spent her fellowship year working with the Carter Center to launch a Gender Crimes Prosecution Unit for the Ministry of Justice in Liberia to prosecute domestic violence and sex offense cases. In law school, Kristina directed the Temporary Restraining Order Project, served as activism chair of Yale Law Women, and co-founded and directed the Domestic Violence Clinic. Before she came to law school, she worked in Uganda for The African AIDS Support Organization (TASO), where she drafted TASO’s strategy for economic empowerment for people living with HIV/AIDS. Kristina graduated in 2004 from Princeton University.

Alisha Bjerregaard (J.D. 2008) is currently a Schell Center Visiting Human Rights Fellow at Yale Law School. Prior to this, she spent three years as the Robert M. Cover-Allard K. Lowenstein Fellow in the Lowenstein Clinic at Yale Law School. Before joining the Clinic, Alisha worked on reproductive rights research and advocacy as a consultant for various human rights organizations and, until 2013, she was a Legal Adviser in the Africa Program at the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR). Based in Nairobi, Kenya, she worked on advocacy and litigation strategies to advance reproductive rights in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda. Alisha spent her Bernstein Fellowship year (2008-09) at CRR, where she worked with CRR’s Kenyan partner organizations to conduct advocacy and provide technical legal assistance around legislative and constitutional reform processes in Kenya. She also published a human rights report on the impact of Kenya’s restrictive abortion law on women, healthcare providers and the healthcare system.

Matiangai Sirleaf (J.D. 2008) is an Assistant Professor of Law at the University Pittsburgh Law School. She previously served as an assistant professor of law at the University of Baltimore School of Law, a Sharswood Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and as a lecturer for the International Human Rights Exchange Programme run by Bard College and University of the Witwatersrand, teaching courses in international law, criminal law, human rights and transitional justice. Her work focuses on remedying the accountability and responsibility gaps that exist in international law. Her current research agenda analyzes the disproportionate distribution of highly-infectious diseases and the role of law in facilitating this result. The University of Pittsburgh awarded Professor Sirleaf the Chancellor's Distinguished Research Award in 2019. From 2010 to 2012, Sirleaf worked in private practice with Cohen, Milstein, Sellers & Toll in Washington, D.C., where she represented plaintiffs in numerous international human rights cases litigated in federal courts. Prior to that, she served as a law clerk to Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, as a fellow with the International Center for Transitional Justice, and as a summer associate with Debevoise & Plimpton in New York City, and as a law clerk with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia. She received her JD from Yale Law School in 2008 and her MA from the University of Ghana (Legon) in International Affairs in 2005. In 2014, she received the Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award from New York University.

2007-2008 Fellows

Nick Robinson (J.D. 2006) is currently a Senior Legal Advisor at the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL) where he leads the U.S. Program. Previously, Nick was a Lecturer in Law and Robina Fellow at Yale Law School, where he taught professional responsibility at the Law School and human rights in Yale College. From 2013 to 2016, Nick was a research fellow at the Center on the Legal Profession at Harvard Law School. Prior to that, Nick spent seven years in South Asia: he was a senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi, where he worked on reforms in the Indian legal system and the implementation of social welfare programs in India, and he was an Assistant Professor at Jindal Global Law School (India) and taught at Lahore University of Management Sciences and the National Law School in Bangalore. He spent his Bernstein Fellowship year (2007-2008) at Human Rights Law Network (HRLN) in New Delhi where he worked on rights litigation involving water and health. In 2006-07, he clerked for Chief Justice Sabharwal of the Indian Supreme Court.

Katherine Southwick (J.D. 2005) is the Senior Genocide Prevention Adviser (Contractor) for a project on the role of criminal justice professionals in mass atrocity prevention at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.  In 2020, she completed her PhD in Law at the National University of Singapore Faculty of Law, with a dissertation on rule of law theory and atrocity prevention. Katherine spent her fellowship year (2006-2007) at Refugees International, where she focused on statelessness.  She presented at the United Nations and published several reports based in part on field research in Bangladesh, Kenya, and Ethiopia.  Following her fellowship, Katherine developed legal reform programs throughout Southeast Asia and the Pacific for the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative (ABA ROLI). After five and half years in the Philippines and Singapore, she returned to the Washington DC area in 2016. She regularly comments in the media and at panel events on the Rohingya genocide and military coup in Myanmar.  Katherine has also practiced international arbitration in a major firm, clerked for the late Judge Charles P. Sifton in the Eastern District of New York, and worked for human rights organizations in New Delhi, India and Kampala, Uganda.  Katherine holds a B.A. from Yale College.

2006-2007 Fellows

Etelle Higonnet (J.D. 2005) is Mighty Earth’s Campaign and Legal Director, where she focuses on forest conservation in the tropics. Mighty is a project of the non-profit Center for International Policy, working with support from Waxman Strategies. Previously, Etelle worked with Greenpeace Southeast Asia as Research Director on a broad range of environmental issues including climate, energy, oceans, toxic waste, ecological agriculture, environmental justice, and forest protection. Before that, Etelle was Amnesty International’s West Africa researcher; served in Iraq as Analysis Director with the Iraq History Project of the International Human Rights Law Institute, which gathered testimonies from Iraqi victims of rights violations; served as a consultant for various organizations, including UNICEF and Open Society. She has written numerous articles, reports and op-eds on environmental subjects and human rights, and authored the book Quiet Genocide. Etelle spent her fellowship year with Human Rights Watch documenting sexual violence in Ivory Coast’s civil war. While at the Law School, she worked on the Yale Journal of International Law and the Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal, and was a member of the Immigration Clinic. She also consulted with the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center to draft a strategic plan for a documentation system based on the work of the Yale-affiliated Documentation Center of Cambodia. Prior to law school, Etelle was the Africa Associate at Human Rights Watch and worked for a human rights NGO in Senegal, running the organization’s ten field offices. Etelle earned a B.A. from Yale University.

Jeremy Robbins (J.D. 2006) is the Executive Director of the New American Economy, a bipartisan coalition of more than 500 CEOs and mayors making the economic case for immigration reform. Previously, Jeremy worked as a Policy Advisor & Special Counsel in the Office of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a judicial law clerk to the Hon. Robert Sack of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and a litigation associate at WilmerHale in Boston, where he helped represent six Bosnian men detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Jeremy spent his fellowship year in Argentina working with the Center for Legal and Social Studies (El Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales) and the Association for Civil Rights (Asociacion por los Derechos Civiles) to develop and implement projects on behalf of people detained in Argentine prisons. His projects included photographically documenting human rights abuses in Argentine prisons for two published human rights reports and publishing an article on social change litigation in the Argentine political science journal Nueva Doctrina Penal.

2005-2006 Fellows

Sari Bashi (J.D. 2003) is a Robina Visiting Human Rights Fellow at the Schell Center and a visiting lecturer in law. In 2005, Sari spent her Bernstein Fellowship in Israel establishing Gisha-Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, the leading Israeli human rights group offering legal assistance to Palestinians who face restrictions on their freedom to travel into and out of the Gaza Strip. Sari served as Gisha's director for nine years, growing it to a staff of 22 and helping thousands of people overcome travel restrictions to access jobs, schools, medical services, and family unity. For her work with Gisha, Sari received a social innovation fellowship from the Echoing Green Foundation and the Emil Grunzweig Human Rights Award from the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. She later served as Israel/Palestine country director at Human Rights Watch. Prior to studying law, Sari worked as a correspondent for the Associated Press in Jerusalem and conducted research on ethnic identity among Ethiopian immigrants to Israel as part of a Fulbright Scholarship. She has taught international law at Tel Aviv University and writes and lectures on international humanitarian law and Israeli policy toward the occupied Palestinian territories, especially Gaza. Sari clerked on the Israeli Supreme Court for Justice Edmond Levi and is a licensed attorney in Israel and New York. Sari received her B.A. (summa cum laude) from Yale University.

Avani Mehta Sood (J.D. 2003) is an Assistant Professor at UC Berkeley’s School of Law, where she teaches Criminal Law, Evidence, and a Colloquium on Law & Psychology. In her research, she applies psychological empirical methods and theories to study legal decision-making and doctrines of law, with a focus on questions relating to criminal punishment and the use of evidence in legal cases. Avani received her Ph.D. in Psychology from Princeton University in 2013. Previously, she worked for the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), where she had spent her fellowship year, documenting rights abuses faced by women seeking reproductive healthcare in Kenya. As a Bernstein Fellow at CRR, Avani worked to promote the use of India’s Public Interest Litigation mechanism (PIL) to address violations of women’s rights. Her projects included conducting legal training workshops to familiarize judges and lawyers in India with international law relating to women’s human rights. Between law school and her fellowship, Avani worked at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP and clerked for Judge Kimba Wood in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. At the Law School, Avani was an Editor of the Yale Law Journal and a member of the Lowenstein Clinic and the New Haven Legal Assistance Clinic. Avani received her B.A. in Psychology from Princeton University in 1999.

2004-2005 Fellows

Elizabeth Brundige (J.D. 2003) is a Clinical Professor of Law at Cornell Law School, where she teaches human rights and directs Cornell’s Gender Justice Clinic in which students engage in local, global, and transnational efforts to address gender-based violence and discrimination. Previously, Liz was a clinical teaching fellow and lecturer at Yale Law School, where she co-taught the Lowenstein Clinic; an Associate Legal Officer in the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia; and a law clerk for Judge Kermit V. Lipez of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and Justice Sandile Ngcobo of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. Liz spent her year as a Bernstein Fellow working with the International Association of Women Judges on programs designed to advance women’s human rights and access to justice in southern and East Africa.

Brandee M. Butler (J.D. 2002) is Deputy CEO at the Fund for Global Human Rights where she oversees the Fund's operations in pursuit of its mission to provide resources and support to frontline human rights activists and movements. Previously, she served as a division director at the Open Society Initiative for Europe leading the Civil Liberties Division. Brandee has over 15 years of experience working with international foundations, civil society organizations, and the private sector to promote human rights. She has served in leadership and grantmaking positions, supporting human rights funding at the C&A (now Laudes) Foundation in Amsterdam and Levi Strauss & Co. in Brussels. Earlier in her career, Brandee received the Yale Law School Bernstein Fellowship for International Human Rights to combat child trafficking in Gabon. She later practiced law at the Alliance for Children's Rights in Los Angeles and specialized in international justice as a program officer at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Brandee has published articules on structural racism, modern slavery, gender-based violence, and supply chain transparency. She currently serves on the boards of Women Win and Ariadne Funders Network. She received a BA with honors from Harvard University and a JD from Yale Law School and is based in Barcelona.

2003-2004 Fellows

Tara J. Melish (J.D. 2000) is a Professor of Law and Director of the Human Rights Center at the University at Buffalo School of Law (SUNY). Tara is also a consultant to a number of NGOs and a legal adviser to Disability Rights International (DRI). Tara was the United Nations representative of DRI in the drafting negotiations of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocol, as well as the U.N. Associate Social Affairs Officer in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Tara has clerked on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for the Hon. James R. Browning; been the recipient of professional fellowships from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Fulbright Foundation; taught at the law schools of Notre Dame, George Washington, Oxford, Georgia, and Virginia, as well as in the Global School on Socio-Economic Rights. She spent her fellowship year undertaking strategic litigation and advocacy in the area of economic, social and cultural rights at the Center for Justice and International Law, a non-profit law firm that specializes in litigation before the Inter-American Commission and Court of Human Rights. At the Law School, she received the Ambrose Gherini Prize and served as Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal, Book Reviews Editor of the Yale Journal of International Law, Student Director of the Schell Center, and teaching assistant for an undergraduate human rights course.

Brent Wible (J.D. 2003) works as counsel in the white-collar litigation and global investigations practices at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP. Before moving into private practice, Brent served in the Office of the White House Counsel in the Obama administration, most recently as Senior Counsel and Special Assistant to the President. He previously served as Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and Assistant Chief of the Fraud Section in the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division. Brent clerked for Judge Allyne R. Ross of the District Court for the Eastern District of New York and Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Brent spent his fellowship year working with the Academy for Educational Development in Washington, D.C., and in Bénin, West Africa, on sexual abuse and sexual harassment in Bénin’s schools. At the Law School, Brent served as a student director of the Lowenstein Clinic, Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal, and Editor on the Yale Law Journal. Brent has a B.A. in History from Haverford College and spent two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Bénin.

2002-2003 Fellows

Molly Land (J.D. 2001) is currently Professor of Law and Human Rights at the University of Connecticut School of Law and Associate Director of the University’s Human Rights Institute. Her scholarship focuses on the intersection of technology, innovation, and human rights, and her recent work explores the extent to which human rights law can provide a foundation for claims of access to the Internet as well as the opportunities and challenges for using new technologies to achieve human rights objectives. Molly spent her fellowship year working with The Advocates for Human Rights, where she led a fact-finding team researching state protection of refugee and immigrant victims of domestic violence in Minneapolis. Molly also clerked for the Hon. Denise Cote, U.S. District Judge, in the Southern District of New York and was an Associate Professor of Law at New York Law School and a Visiting Lecturer in Law and the Robert M. Cover - Allard K. Lowenstein Fellow in International Human Rights at Yale Law School.

Eric A. Friedman (J.D. 2002) is the Global Health Justice Scholar at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he works on right to health and global health initiatives and scholarship. Earlier, he was Project Leader for the Framework Convention on Global Health initiative, advocating for a global health treaty based on the right to health and aimed at achieving national and global health equity. Before joining the O'Neill Institute in 2010, Eric worked at Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), where his primary focus was the massive shortage of health workers in sub-Saharan Africa and incorporating the right to health into U.S. and developing country policies. He also served on the Board of the Global Health Workforce Alliance, chaired the Health Workforce Advocacy Initiative, and published several guides on the health workforce and right to health. Eric initially joined PHR for his fellowship year, working on global AIDS policy and advocacy. Eric was a member of the Lowenstein Clinic during most of his time at law school, and received the Khosla Memorial Fund for Human Dignity Prize for his human rights work during law school. Eric received a B.A. in psychology from Yale in 1999.  

2001-2002 Fellows

Susan Benesch (J.D. 2001) is a faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. She founded and directs the Dangerous Speech Project, which seeks to diminish violent hate speech, online and offline, and she teaches human rights at American University. Susan spent her fellowship at the organization now called Human Rights First, where she built a network of grassroots activists around asylum issues. She went on to advise the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on building a similar network for genocide prevention. Susan has also directed the Refugee Program at Amnesty International USA, where she focused on unaccompanied children, Haitians, and the detention of asylum-seekers. From 2005 to 2009 she taught at universities including Georgetown and Baltimore, was a Dean’s Visiting Scholar at Georgetown's law school, and was Senior Legal Advisor to the Center for Justice and Accountability, an NGO that brings torturers and other human rights violators to justice. At the Law School, Susan founded the Cuba Exchange Project, sending Yale students to Havana to debate Cuban law students on topics including human rights. For six years before law school, Susan was a full-time newspaper and magazine journalist in Latin America. Susan also co-authored a book on the writing of poetry, The Hand of the Poet (Rizzoli 1997).

Marco Simons (J.D. 2001) is the General Counsel and Americas Regional Director at EarthRights International in Washington, DC, where he leads U.S. and global legal strategies seeking remedies for communities suffering human rights and environmental harms from corporations. In 2019, the EarthRights team won the landmark Jam v. IFC case at the U.S. Supreme Court, which held that the World Bank Group could be sued in U.S. court for its commercial activities, and EarthRights has also pioneered the use of discovery in U.S. courts to assist with human rights and environmental litigation in other countries. Marco also works with lawyers in Southeast Asia and South America on strategies to defend rights in those regions. Previously, Marco practiced human rights and civil rights law with Hadsell & Stormer in Pasadena, California, and clerked for the Hon. Dorothy Wright Nelson on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena. He has taught human rights law at Occidental College and American University’s law school. Marco also spent his fellowship year at ERI, focusing on holding corporations and other actors accountable for human rights and environmental abuses against vulnerable communities worldwide. At the Law School, Marco worked with the Lowenstein International Human Rights Project, the Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal, and the Lowenstein Clinic. Marco graduated from Harvard College in 1997.

2000-2001 Fellows

Fiona Doherty (J.D. 1999) is a Clinical Professor of Law at Yale Law School. In 2011, she was the Senior Liman Fellow in Residence at Yale Law School. Previously, Fiona worked as Senior Counsel at the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (now Human Rights First). From 2005 to 2011, she was an Assistant Federal Defender at the Federal Defender’s office in the Southern District of New York. Fiona spent her fellowship year in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where she worked with the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ). She assisted in CAJ’s efforts to ensure that the human rights commitments in the Good Friday Agreement were fully implemented. While at CAJ, Fiona assisted in many of CAJ’s legal cases, involving such issues as the government’s use of lethal force, collusion between the security forces and paramilitaries, and prisoners’ rights.

Robert David Sloane (J.D. 2000) is Professor and R. Gordon Butler Scholar of International Law at Boston University Law School. Rob has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Michigan and Harvard Law Schools, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and the Xiamen Academy of International Law. He twice received the Francis Lieber Prize for outstanding scholarship on the law of war by an author under 35, and in 2013, received the Francis Deák Prize for the best article in the American Journal of International Law by a younger author. Rob clerked for Second Circuit Judges Robert D. Sack and Gerard E. Lynch; worked at Debevoise & Plimpton, where he helped litigate the International Court of Justice Avena case; spent a year as a Schell Fellow at Yale, where he taught Human Rights and International Arbitration; and worked for a year as an Associate-in-Law at Columbia. He also serves as President of the Board of Tibet Justice Center, the NGO with which Rob worked during his Bernstein Fellowship. As a fellow, he carried out research in Nepal, India, and Tibet; litigated or served as an expert witness in asylum cases; and cooperated with the Tibetan government-in-exile on international advocacy. Rob earned a diploma from The Hague Academy of International Law in 2007. At the Law School, he served as a student director of the Lowenstein Clinic and received the Khosla Memorial Human Dignity Prize. Rob received his B.A., magna cum laude, with Departmental Honors in Philosophy, from Columbia in 1996.

1999-2000 Fellows

Jonathan Freiman (J.D. 1998) represents clients from around the world in complex cases. His recent victories include major reversals in the Supreme Courts of California, Georgia, and Connecticut and in federal circuits around the country. Jonathan is currently defending the Federal Republic of Germany and a Berlin-based consortium of state-run museums in a D.C. suit alleging that a large medieval art collection was sold as the result of Nazi duress. He successfully defended a former President of Mexico accused of having violated international law while serving as president, defeated a Nobel Prize winner in litigation over the ownership of the patent on the Nobel-winning technology, successfully defended Yale in a claim to a van Gogh masterpiece, and represented Yale in its dispute with Peru over artifacts from Machu Picchu. In 2002, he co-founded the post-9/11 clinic at YLS and spent several years litigating cases at the intersection of national security and civil liberty, serving as Lecturer, Research Scholar and Clinical Advisor at the Law School and as a Senior Fellow at the Schell Center. Jonathan spent his Bernstein Fellowship year in residence at the Law School, after clerking for former YLS Dean Hon. Louis H. Pollak. At the Law School, he was student director of the Lowenstein Clinic, Keck Fellow in Legal Ethics, Senior Editor of the Yale Law Journal, and received the YLS Albom Prize for excellence in appellate litigation connected to a clinical program, as well as awards from the Florida Supreme Court and Cuban American Bar Association.

Jaya Ramji-Nogales (J.D. 1999) is Associate Dean for Research and the I. Herman Stern Research Professor at Temple Law School, where she teaches Refugee Law and Policy and the Temple Law Asylum Project. She has published extensively on refugee and migration law, including three co-authored books, Refugee Roulette, Lives in the Balance, and The End of Asylum. Jaya is a Counsellor at the American Society of International Law, where she was a founding co-chair of the Migration Law Interest Group; a Senior Research Associate at the Refugee Law Initiative of the School of Advanced Study at the University of London; a member of the Committee on International Migration of the International Law Association, and a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the RefMig Project of the Hertie School Center for Fundamental Rights and the Oxford Refugee Studies Centre. Before joining the Temple Law faculty, Jaya was a clinical teaching fellow at the Georgetown University Law Center; a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union in New York; and an associate at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP. Jaya spent her fellowship year launching a refugee law clinic at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. She published two pieces stemming from her work in South Africa: “Inside Illegality: Migration Policing in South Africa after Apartheid,” in Africa Today (2001) (with Jonathan Klaaren) and “Interpretation Consistent with International Law? The Detention of Asylum Seekers in South Africa,” in Refuge (2002).

Mark Templeton (J.D. 1999) is Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the Abrams Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School. Mark was Trustee and Executive Director of the $20 billion Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Trust from 2010 to 2016; Director of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources from 2009 to 2010; Associate Dean at Yale Law School from 2005 to 2009; and an Engagement Manager and Associate at McKinsey and Company from 2001 to 2005. Mark also served as Special Assistant to Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Harold Koh and as a member of the U.S. delegation to the 2001 U.N. Commission on Human Rights. Prior to that, Mark spent his fellowship year in Bangkok, Thailand, where he helped establish a regional office for the New Delhi-based South Asia Human Rights Documentation Center. During that time, he worked with grassroots organizations in northeastern Thailand, representing fishers and farmers affected by development projects. In law school, Mark was a student director of the Lowenstein Clinic. He has served as a consultant and author for Human Rights Watch and a consultant and editor for the Open Society Institute. Prior to Law School, he was a Financial Analyst at Goldman Sachs & Co. Mark received an A.B. degree in Social Studies from Harvard College in 1994.

1998-1999 Fellows

M. Ahadi Bugg-Levine (J.D. 1998) is President of Bugg-Levine, Inc., an independent consulting practice, which provides strategic and implementation services to foundations and nonprofits. Ahadi is also a Board Member for JESPY House, a community-based nonprofit that helps adults with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities to live independently. Ahadi served as a Fellow at The Atlantic Philanthropies where she developed and led its US-Cuba policy advocacy efforts, which culminated in President Obama signing an executive order to expand U.S. travel to Cuba in 2011. Ahadi lived in Kenya where she contributed to projects empowering farmers and artists. Ahadi served as Senior Counsel in the Affirmative Litigation division of the New York City Law Department. She also served as a Policy Counsel at the National Partnership for Women and Families. Ahadi received the Bernstein Fellowship (1998-1999) to promote the rights of people with disabilities while working at the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) in Johannesburg, South Africa. She drafted and provided technical support for the disability provisions of South Africa’s Equality Act; trained and supported Members of Parliament; educated disability rights activists on the legislation; and assessed disability-related complaints submitted to the SAHRC. During her Bernstein Fellowship, Ahadi also contributed to the Centre for Applied Legal Studies and traveled to Mozambique to work on disability issues with the nation’s Supreme Court Justices. Ahadi earned her J.D. and Ph.D. in Political Science from Yale Law School and Yale University, respectively. Ahadi graduated from Wellesley College in 1992.

Noah Novogrodsky (J.D. 1997) is the Carl M. Williams Professor of Law & Ethics at the University of Wyoming Law School and the Director of the Center for International Human Rights Law & Advocacy. Previously, Noah clerked for Judge Nancy Gertner of the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts. From September 2002 until May 2008, Noah was an Adjunct Professor and the Founding Director of the International Human Rights Clinic at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. Noah has been a visiting professor at Georgetown University Law Center, the University of Connecticut School of Law, and the Human Rights Center of the UC Berkeley School of Law. Noah spent his Bernstein Fellowship year conducting constitutional development work in the Horn of Africa. When war broke out in May 1998 between Eritrea and Ethiopia, Noah turned his attention to investigating and documenting war-related human rights abuses, visiting refugee camps on both sides of the border, writing articles for publication, and sharing his findings with human rights groups, aid agencies, and U.N. officials. While at Yale Law School, he co-taught a seminar called “Bearing Witness” with Professor Harlon Dalton, co-chaired the Cambodia Genocide Justice Project, worked as a Research Assistant for Professors Owen Fiss and Paul Gewirtz, and acted as a team leader for the Lowenstein Clinic. Noah received an M.Phil. in International Relations from the University of Cambridge in 1994 and graduated from Swarthmore College with highest honors in 1992.

Jeffrey Prescott (J.D. 1997) is executive director of National Security Action and a senior fellow of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. In the Obama Administration, Jeff served as Special Assistant to the President Obama, as Senior Director for Iran, Iraq, Syria, and the Gulf States on the National Security Council, and as Deputy National Security Advisor and senior Asia advisor to Vice President Biden. Jeff previously was Senior Research Scholar and Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School, a Visiting Scholar of Peking University Law School, and the Deputy Director of the China Law Center, where he founded and directed the Center’s Beijing office. Jeff clerked for the Hon. Walter K. Stapleton, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He spent his Bernstein fellowship year (1998-99) at the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (now Human Rights First), where he helped establish the Rights Defenders Program, which provides lifelines for lawyers and activists at risk around the world.