Malak Afaneh (Pomona College ‘21) is about to graduate from UC Berkeley School of Law as a Human Rights Center Scholar with the aim of providing more survivor-centered forms of care for survivors of gender based violence within an international human rights framework. Malak has been a legal intern for the International Legal Foundation in Ramallah since 2022 and a Civil Rights Law Clerk for Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) in New York in California. During her time at Berkeley Law she has worked as an Afghanistan Project advocate, where she got the opportunity to aid Afghani clients in their application for Humanitarian Parole, and as an advocate with the International Human Rights Workshop, where she has been assisting in writing an article with Dr. Alexa Koenig on the role of consent in open source investigations. Malak has also served as president for Berkeley Law Students for Justice in Palestine.

 

Kenia Hale (Yale ‘21) is a writer and scholar, and Administrative Coordinator at the Incite Center at Columbia University. At Incite, Kenia works on a number of projects, including Logic(s) Magazine, a Black Queer and Asian critical tech magazine; Assembling Voices, distributing resources to artists and community workers; and I See My Light Shining, writing essays on oral histories of 300 Black, Native, and LGBTQ elders across the US. Prior to joining Incite, she completed a two year Emerging Scholar fellowship at the Princeton Center for Information Technology Policy and the Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab, where she produced scholarship at the intersection of tech, environmental justice, and racial justice.

 

Margot Lurie (Amherst ‘21) is currently pursuing a PhD in Sociology at the University of Chicago. She is studying rural electrification in the US during the New Deal, with particular attention to the relationship between domestic energy policy and the rise of the military industrial complex. Her work aims to historicize American energy and material consumption, understand how federal electrification efforts contributed to inequality, and offer insights for the clean energy transition. In her spare time, she also organizes with the Graduate Student Union!

 

Luis Martínez (Vanderbilt University ‘22) is a rising 3L at UCLA Law. He has interned at Earthjustice’s Florida Regional Office and EarthRights International, and he is working at the Southern Environmental Law Center’s Atlanta Office this summer. After graduating in 2025, Luis will be clerking for Judge Julia S. Gibbons on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and afterwards for Judge Thomas L. Parker on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee. He hopes to return to public interest litigation to help vindicate vulnerable communities’ environmental and human rights in court after clerking.

 

Kenny Morris (UC Santa Barbara ‘21) is the University Network’s Community Engagement & Outreach Coordinator. Before that, he organized with logistics workers within the San Diego-Tijuana Borderland. The group of workers, including Kenny, advocated for and won transportation and enhanced safety procedures for thousands of workers. Kenny has also organized closely with the UC Cops Off Campus movement, the Santa Barbara Tenants Union (SBTU), and the Student Activist Network. He co-founded the student community chapter of the SBTU, The Isla Vista Housing Crisis Coalition, which held community building events, tenant info sessions, and pushed local government officials to extend the eviction moratorium in the months following the initial COVID-19 shutdown.

 

Sydney Young (Harvard ‘23) is interning with Rise, a legislative reform movement that is working to pass a Sexual Assault Survivor's Bill of Rights in every state as well as a UN resolution to protect survivor's rights.

 

James Chang (University of Pennsylvania ‘22) is the recipient of the Turner Schulman Endowed Human Rights Award and was inducted into the Sigma Tau Delta Honor Society. In the fall of 2023, he will matriculate at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. During his deferral year, he plans to work in the Office of the Connecticut Attorney General and volunteer with AmeriCorps for several months. 

 

Lillian Hua (Yale ‘21) graduated from Yale College with a B.A. in Economics and Ethnicity, Race, & Migration with Distinction in May 2021. She then began working at the Center for Policing Equity, where she works on Reimagining Public Safety initiatives across the country and researches international and human rights-based approaches to public safety. She has also been taking advanced language classes at the International Chinese Language Program with generous support from the Richard U. Light Fellowship.

 

Stephanie Dukich (Wesleyan ‘20) is an Investigator with the New York City Civil Complaint Review Board. In her position, she investigates and documents civilian complaints of abuse and misconduct against the New York City Police Department.

 

Tara Nair (Wesleyan ‘21) attends the NYU School of Law, where she studies human rights and international law. Tara is the recipient of NYU’s ILLJ Joyce Lowinson fellowship, a highly competitive, full-tuition award given to incoming students with demonstrable interest and experience in international and human rights law. She is also currently a Legal Researcher for the Transformative Justice Collective and a Research Assistant to the Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers.

 

Mahey Gheis (Wesleyan Pilot Program ‘22) graduated from Wesleyan in 2022 after participating in human rights investigations in Puerto Rico and Mossville, Louisiana. She is currently the assistant to the CEO at The Door, a New York non-profit that provides comprehensive youth development services.

 

José Ginocchio-Moraiz (Trinity ‘23) is the Program Officer for the Americas at the University Network for Human Rights. He is an anthropologist and filmmaker who focuses on the rights of indigenous people and migrants. He has researched these issues in Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and The United States. Before working for the UNHR, José oversaw human rights advocacy projects; his latest, a grant of international cooperation between the European Commission and Argentina, tackling rights abuse against indigenous people in his home province, Salta. After graduating summa cum laude with a double major in Anthropology and Human Rights from Trinity College Hartford, José co-founded a non-governmental organization based in Argentina and currently serves as its vice-president.

 

Molly Meyer (Wesleyan ‘23) graduated in three years from Wesleyan with Honors for her thesis in English and a Minor in Human Rights Advocacy, after participating in human rights investigations in St. John’s the Baptist Parish and Mossville, Louisiana. She is currently a 1L and a Dean’s Scholarship recipient at the University of Connecticut Law School, where she will continue to study human rights law.

 
 

Annie McGovern (Wesleyan ‘22) graduated from Wesleyan University with a Bachelor’s degree in Government and Psychology. She was elected into Psi Chi, the International Honor Society in Psychology, and received the Davenport Prize, an award issued by the Wesleyan Government department to seniors for excellence shown in the field of government and politics. She is passionate about gender and racial equity and interested in utilizing political and legislative advocacy to achieve these ends. Her research with the University Network into the Nagorno-Karabakh war further reinforced her desire to work directly with affected people and within communities.

 
 

Anna Grant-Bolton (Trinity ‘25) is an intern with the James B. Moran Center for Youth Advocacy. In her work, she hopes to contribute to interrupting the school-to-prison pipeline for marginalized young people and expand transformative models of community safety. Since participating in the Wesleyan Pilot Program, Anna has declared a major in human rights and applied learning from the UNHR to mutual aid organizing.

 

Briana Rodriguez Castillo (Wesleyan ‘23) majors in Government and the College of Social Studies and minors in Human Rights Advocacy at Wesleyan University. She was recently awarded the Davenport Grant to fund her senior thesis research examining how current US immigration policies in the US are not up to international human rights standards, with an emphasis on undocumented Latin American women working in the care sector. She is currently interning at a law firm in Colorado aiding in the creation of a new Behavioral Health Administration that treats vulnerable Coloradans instead of incarcerating them.

 

Lena Kruzycki (Wesleyan ‘22) will soon graduate from the University of Heidelberg, Germany with a BA in American Studies. Her Bachelor’s thesis examines human rights violations connected to the American prison system under Trump and Biden with a focus on the repurposing of private prisons as immigration detention centers. While studying abroad at Wesleyan, Lena collaborated with formerly incarcerated artists and put on a play in New York City. A recording of the performance is available on YouTube here.