J.S.D. Candidate Profiles
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Akshat Agarwal Akshat Agarwal is a J.S.D. candidate and Tutor in Law at Yale Law School, where he obtained his LL.M. degree in 2022. Before coming to Yale, Akshat worked as a legal and policy researcher with a leading think tank in India. Akshat’s J.S.D. dissertation focuses on the interaction between constitutional law and family law in diverse jurisdictions of the Global North and the Global South. He seeks to understand and theorize how constitutional law concepts such as equality and rights interact with family law interests and policy objectives in the everyday practice of family law. |
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Delfina Beguerie Delfina Beguerie is a J.S.D. candidate at Yale Law School, where she also obtained her LL.M. degree in 2017. In 2016-2017, she was a Fulbright Scholar. Before coming to Yale, Delfina taught constitutional law at Universidad de San Andrés and served as a junior clerk at the Argentine Supreme Court of Justice. Her academic interests lie at the intersection of human rights and constitutional law, and her J.S.D. dissertation focuses on the ways in which different communities recognize constitutional meaning to human rights. |
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Fernando Bracaccini Fernando Bracaccini is a J.S.D. candidate at Yale Law School, where he earned his LL.M. degree in 2018 while he was a Fulbright Scholar. Before coming to Yale, he taught courses on legal theory, constitutional law, criminal law and human rights at the Universidad de Buenos Aires and the Universidad de Palermo. Fernando’s academic interests focus on the intersections of political theory and the philosophy of criminal law. His J.S.D. dissertation addresses the problem of the permissibility of retributive punishment from the perspective of the theory of deliberative democracy. |
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Violeta Canaves Violeta Canaves is a J.S.D. candidate at Yale Law School, where she also earned her LL.M. degree in 2015. She served as a Tutor in Law for the 2016-17 academic year. Violeta's academic interests include constitutional law, federalism, human rights, law and social movements, and women's studies. Her J.S.D. dissertation focuses on how relations and tensions between institutional and popular understandings about human rights shape the meaning of the Constitution in Argentina. |
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Andrés Caro Andrés Caro Borrero is a Colombian lawyer currently pursuing a J.S.D. at Yale Law School, where he also obtained his LL.M. degree in 2020 and for which he received the Henry Ralph Ringe Scholarship, after which he was a Fox Fellow for the year 2020-2021. He received the 2020 Barry S. Cohen Prize for the Best Paper on a Subject Related to Literature and the Law from Yale Law School. |
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Manuel Casas Manuel Casas is a J.S.D. candidate at Yale Law School, where he also obtained an LL.M. degree in 2015. Manuel’s research focuses on the intersection between public international law and procedural law, particularly on jurisdiction and the authority of international courts and tribunals. In 2015-2016, Manuel was a law clerk (U.T.) at the International Court of Justice and a Yale Law School Public Interest/International Court of Justice Fellow. |
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Patricia Cruz Marin Patricia Cruz Marin is a Mexican lawyer and political scientist currently pursuing a J.S.D. at Yale Law School, where she also obtained her LL.M. degree in 2020. From 2020-2021, she was a Bernstein Fellow at the Center for Justice International Law (CEJIL), representing victims of human rights violations at the Inter-American System. Her main research topics are the impact and compliance of the Inter-American System of Human Rights decisions, remedies in cases of serious human rights violations, mechanisms to fight impunity in Latin America, and the pedagogy of legal education. |
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Liat Dasht Liat Dasht is a J.S.D. candidate at Yale Law School. She holds an LL.M. from Yale (2022, pursued as a Fulbright Scholar), and an LL.B. and a B.A. in Philosophy from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2019). Liat’s research revolves around the intersections of law and analytic philosophy and currently focuses on constitutional law, free speech, contract law, and legal, moral, and political philosophy, alongside the philosophy of mind and action. Her dissertation deals with how questions of moral responsibility of formal collectives – such as the state – and the moral significance of their actions and mental states – affect legal doctrines. |
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Tasneem Deo Tasneem Deo is a J.S.D. candidate at Yale Law School, where she earned her LL.M. degree in 2014 and served as a Tutor in Law in 2015-16. Her academic interests center around the study of female criminality. Her doctoral work, supported by the MacMillan Fellowship at Yale University, seeks to analyze empirically whether gender per se or conformity to gender stereotypes affects decision making in Indian criminal courts. Tasneem completed an M.Sc. degree in Criminology and Criminal Justice from the University of Oxford in 2015 and has been a Guest Lecturer at the National Law School of India University Bangalore since July 2014. |
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Luis Eugenio García-Huidobro Luis Eugenio García-Huidobro is a J.S.D. candidate at Yale Law School, where he also obtained his LL.M. degree as a Fulbright Scholar in 2017. In 2017-2018, Eugenio was a Fox Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University. Before coming to Yale, Eugenio was an assistant professor of law at the Catholic University of Chile and a practicing lawyer in one of Latin America’s largest law firms, where he argued several cases before the Chilean Supreme Court and Constitutional Tribunal. He has also been a visiting research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law. Eugenio’s research focuses on administrative law, comparative public law, institutional design, and the sociology of law. |
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Adi Gal Adi Gal is a J.S.D. candidate at Yale Law School, where she also obtained her LL.M. degree in 2020. She is an E. David Fischman fellow. Before coming to Yale, Adi worked for the Deputy Attorney General (International Law) in Israel, and as a researcher in a leading Israeli think tank. She was also a practicing lawyer specializing in complex commercial litigation and arbitration cases in the private sector. Adi’s dissertation examines the history and practice of remediation for international human rights law and international humanitarian law violations. The project suggests a theoretical framework that draws on private law methodologies, particularly torts. Her research areas include Private Law Theory, Constitutional Law, International Human Rights Law, International Humanitarian Law, International Criminal Law, and Public Policy. |
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Sarah Ganty Sarah Ganty is a J.S.D. candidate at Yale Law School. Merging theory, empirical and normative legal analysis in addressing the relationship between citizenship and socioeconomic inequalities, Sarah’s thesis introduces the concept of “merizenship”, which helps to trace the differences in access to rights encountered by the rich and highly educated compared with all others. Sarah is also an assistant professor at the Faculty of Law of the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and the Université Saint Louis (Brussels) where she teaches EU law and Philosophy of Human Rights. She defended her Ph.D. at the ULB in February 2019 and earned an LL.M from Yale Law School in 2018, where she was a Fulbright fellow. |
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Akriti Gaur Akriti Gaur is an Indian lawyer currently pursuing a J.S.D. at Yale Law School where she also serves as a Tutor in Law. She obtained her LL.M. degree from Yale Law School in 2022. Before coming to Yale, Akriti was a policy advisor and an independent researcher focusing on technology and human rights in India. Her doctoral project focuses on constitutional resilience and the distortion of the digital public sphere, particularly the impact of emerging social media platforms on authoritarianism and speech control in the Majority world. |
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Sergio Giuliano Sergio Giuliano is a J.S.D. candidate at Yale Law School, where he obtained his LL.M. degree in 2016 as a Fulbright Scholar. Before coming to Yale he obtained his LL.B. summa cum laude from Universidad de San Andrés, Argentina, where he later taught Constitutional Law and Interpretation of the Law. He also served as legal advisor to two subsequent Minority Leaders at the Argentine Chamber of Deputies. After his LL.M. Sergio clerked at the European Court of Human Rights as a Robina Human Rights Fellow and obtained his M.P.P. with distinction from the University of Oxford as a Weidenfeld-Hoffmann/Chevening Scholar. He is currently a Human Rights Officer at the UNOHCHR where he works on individual complaints before the UN Treaty Bodies. Sergio has researched and published on globalization backlash and its impact on international human rights law. |
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Sebastián Guidi Sebastián Guidi is a J.S.D. candidate at Yale Law School, where he also earned his LL.M. in 2017 and served as Tutor-in-Law for the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 academic years. Sebastián's doctoral project explores the legitimacy of international courts from the perspective of democratic constitutionalism. He is interested in the discursive and political practices that attempt to legitimate or delegitimate controversial international courts' decisions within a given political community. |
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Xinyu Huang Xinyu Huang is a J.S.D. candidate at Yale Law School, where she earned her LL.M. degree in 2018. Xinyu’s academic interests include Chinese legal history, comparative law and bureaucracy. Her J.S.D. dissertation focuses the development of supervisory agents in eighteenth-century China and France, aiming to examine how the trade-off between the pursuit of administrative efficiency and the principle-agent problem shaped the supervisory agent in premodern society. |
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Pinchas Huberman Pinchas Huberman is a J.S.D. candidate at Yale Law School, writing his dissertation in free speech theory. He is also a Resident Fellow with the Yale Information Society Project and a Doctoral Fellow with the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. |
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Emilia Jocelyn-Holt Emilia Jocelyn-Holt is a J.S.D. candidate at Yale Law School, where she completed her LL.M. degree in 2019 with the support of both Fulbright and Becas Chile scholarships. Emilia is a full-time research scholar and lecturer at Universidad de Santiago de Chile, where she has taught Philosophical Foundations of Law before coming to Yale. During 2016 and 2017, she also taught a course on Law and Literature at the Universidad de Chile Law Faculty. Her academic interests lie at the intersection of law and humanities, especially the relationship between law and literature as well as law and philosophy. |
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Jiangfeng Li Jiangfeng Li is a J.S.D. candidate at Yale Law School, where she received her LL.M. degree in 2015. She previously obtained her J.D. and J.M. degrees, with distinction, from Peking University School of Transnational law in China in 2012. Jiangfeng’s academic interests include international law, international arbitration, environmental law, and legal issues pertaining to China’s legal reform. She has published articles relating to China’s air pollution regulation, China’s financial regulation, and international treaties. |
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Bin Ling Bin Ling is a J.S.D. candidate at Yale Law School, where he earned his LL.M. degree in 2006. Before initially coming to New Haven, he obtained his LL.B. degree in 2000 and his Ph.D. degree in 2005 from Peking University Law School, where he has been a full professor and a doctorial supervisor since 2014. He has also been a Visiting Scholar at Cornell Law School, Tilburg Law School, and the Center for Chinese Studies, University of Hawaii. Bin's academic interests lie mainly in legal theory (especially law and economics and sociology of law), constitutional history, and comparative law. |
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Fernando Loayza Jordán Fernando Loayza Jordán is a J.S.D. candidate at Yale Law School, where he also obtained his LL.M. degree in 2020 and where he is currently serving as a Tutor in Law. Fernando has taught Economics and Law and Taxation at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú and the Universidad del Pacífico. He has also worked in the private sector as a tax lawyer, and for the Tax Justice Network as a researcher. His thesis dissertation explores the interaction between the political economy of economic constitutions and the limits of liberal democracy, and his research areas include Constitutional Law, Taxation, Law and Political Economy, Public Policy, and Law & Economics. |
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Sandra Magalang Sandra Mae Tolentino Magalang is a J.S.D. candidate at Yale Law School, where she obtained her LL.M. degree in 2020. In 2020-2021, Sandra was a Fox Visiting Fellow at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan. Before coming to Yale, Sandra was a practicing lawyer specializing in litigation and arbitration, and worked on important constitutional litigation cases before the Philippine Supreme Court. She also taught constitutional law and administrative law at the University of the Philippines. Sandra's current research focuses on comparative constitutional law, international law, and legal history, particularly the intersection of imposed constitutionalism and U.S., Philippine, and Japanese constitutional development in the late 19th to early 20th century. |
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María Gracia Naranjo-Ponce María Gracia Naranjo Ponce is an Ecuadorian lawyer currently pursuing a J.S.D at Yale Law School, where she also obtained her LL.M. degree in 2022 as a Fulbright Scholar. Before coming to Yale, she was a practicing lawyer in the fields of tax law, private law, and dispute resolution, clerked at the Constitutional Court of Ecuador, and taught at Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ). She is currently a professor at USFQ. María Gracia’s academic interests focus on tax law, private law, and dispute resolution. Her J.S.D research explores the substance over form doctrine and its potential conflicts with due process. |
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Ellen Nohle Ellen Nohle is a JSD Candidate at 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. |
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Rafael Nunes Rafael is a J.S.D. Candidate at Yale Law School (2019-) and an Information Society Project resident fellow at Yale Law School, researching issues of law and technology, information policy, and platform regulation. He was a guest researcher at the Social Science Research Center of Berlin (WZB) and a Yale Public Interest Fellow at Access Now (2020-21). He was a Fox Fellow at El Colegio de Mexico (2018-2019). He holds an LL.M. from Yale Law School (2018), a Master of Laws from the University of São Paulo (2015), and a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) from Federal University of Maranhão (2013). |
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Thomaz Pereira Thomaz Pereira is a J.S.D. candidate at Yale Law School, where he served as Tutor in Law from 2012 to 2014. He is currently a Professor at FGV Direito Rio in Brazil and was a Visiting Professor at National Law University, Delhi, in India. Prior to coming to Yale, Thomaz worked as Law Clerk to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Brazil, as Chief of Staff to the President of the Brazilian National Council of Justice, and as a full-time researcher at FGV Direito SP. His academic interests include the fields of constitutional law and theory, comparative law, legal and political history, legal and political theory, and civil procedure. |
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Sanjayan Rajasingham Sanjayan Rajasingham’s research focuses on constitutional law in Buddhist-majority contexts. Born in Colombo, Sri Lanka, he has an LL.B. from the University of Colombo and an LL.M. from Yale Law School; he has also taught law at the University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka, between 2017-2018. His dissertation theorizes the relationship between law and religion through the experience of global South states – in this case, Theravada Buddhism in Sri Lanka and Thailand. As part of his doctoral work, he was a Yale Fox Fellow at the National University of Singapore (2020-2021) and a Visiting Researcher on a Yale MacMillan Center Fellowship at Thammasat University, Thailand (2021-2022). He has research fluency in English, Tamil, Sinhala and Thai. |
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Ana Beatriz Robalinho Ana Beatriz Robalinho is a Brazilian lawyer currently pursuing a J.S.D. at Yale Law School, where she also served as Tutor-in-Law for the 2021-2022 academic year. She earned her LL.M. from Yale in 2016, and later worked as a constitutional litigator and as Law Clerk to Justice Luís Roberto Barroso of the Supreme Court of Brazil. Before returning to Yale, she also taught courses on constitutional law at the University of Brasilia. Her academic interests include comparative constitutional law and constitutional history, and her J.S.D. dissertation focuses on the relationship between constitutional courts and the executive following transitions into democracy. |
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Katharina Isabel Schmidt Katharina Isabel Schmidt is a J.S.D. candidate at Yale Law School. Before coming to New Haven in 2012, she obtained law degrees in Germany and the United Kingdom. She is concurrently pursuing a Ph.D. in History at Princeton University. |
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Omar Yousef Shehabi Omar is a J.S.D. candidate at Yale Law School. He is a generalist public international lawyer with particular interest in international dispute settlement, the law of international responsibility, the law of international organizations, international labor law, human rights, and international humanitarian law. His doctoral research explores strategies for overcoming resistance to compliance with fundamental norms in an increasingly illiberal world order. Omar is currently a legal officer with the United Nations Office of Administration of Justice. Previously, he was a legal officer with the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, and a member of the Palestinian negotiating team in permanent-status negotiations with Israel. He also taught international law and human rights at Birzeit University in Palestine and practiced labor law in the United States. |
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Carlo Vistan Edgardo Carlo Lasam Vistan, II is a J.S.D. candidate at Yale Law School, where he also earned his LL.M. degree in 2017. His current research endeavors are in public international law, constitutional law, and the interplay of science, technology, and the law, and his doctoral study explores how international law could regulate cyber conflict and aims to develop a treaty-based regime towards this end. Since 2006, Carlo has been teaching public, private, and remedial law courses in the Angeles University Foundation and at U.P. |
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Elazar Weiss Elazar Weiss is a J.S.D. candidate at Yale Law School, where he also earned his LL.M. degree in 2020. Elazar’s research focuses on the intersection between law, culture and language. His J.S.D dissertation examines metaphors and paradigms underlying US abortion jurisprudence and “culture wars” (Privacy vs. Destiny). Before coming to Yale, Elazar completed degrees in law (L.L.B.), philosophy and economics (B.A.) through The Lautman Interdisciplinary Program of Tel-Aviv University. In 2021, Elazar served as a Human Rights Fellow at Yale Law School’s Schell center. Visual documentation of his Socio-Political journey through the Holy Land is currently on exhibit at the Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale. |
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Jingjian Wu Jingjian Wu is a J.S.D. candidate at Yale Law School, where he received his LL.M. degree in 2017. Prior to coming to Yale, he completed his LL.B. degree in 2014 and his first LL.M. degree in 2016 at Peking University, where he served as a member of the editorial board of the Peking University Law Review. Jingjian’s academic interests include legal history, the history of political thought, administrative law, constitutional law, and Chinese law. He has published several articles on legal history in China. |
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Weilin Xiao Weilin Xiao is a J.S.D. candidate at Yale Law School, where he also earned his LL.M. degree in 2019. During the 2019-2020 academic year, he was a Visiting Researcher at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, at the University of Tokyo, under the International Dissertation Research Fellowship awarded by the Yale MacMillan Center. Weilin's academic interests include sociology of law, comparative law, and legal history — especially focusing on modern East Asia. |
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FAN Xiaolu FAN Xiaolu is a J.S.D. candidate at Yale Law School, where she earned her LL.M. degree in 2022. Xiaolu’s areas of interest in legal scholarship include international law, international legal history, international environmental law, and critical theory. Her doctoral research at Yale focuses on the history of international environmental law from the 1970s to the 1990s. The project examines the involvement and influence of economic institutions on the development of international environmental law and how that reshaped the relationship between developed and developing countries. |
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Roman Zinigrad Roman Zinigrad is a J.S.D. candidate at Yale Law School, where he also earned his LL.M. degree. Roman spent the 2015-16 academic year as a Visiting Researcher at Sciences Po Law School in Paris under a Teaching Fellowship awarded to him by Sciences Po (Paris Institute of Political Studies). In addition to conducting his research, he is teaching courses in law and religion, comparative constitutional law, and the law of the European Union at Sciences Po College. |