Global Law Scholars
2013-2014
Class of 2016
Lynn Bechtol
Lynn graduated from the Honors program at the University of Puget Sound in 2007 with
a BA in Foreign Languages and International Affairs, specializing in Mandarin Chinese. As
an undergrad, she studied abroad in Beijing for a year in 2005-2006, where she first
developed a commitment to International Human Rights after volunteering with the
children of internal migrants. After a summer spent studying Mandarin in Taiwan, Lynn
began the MA program at Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies
(SAIS), spending a year at the Nanjing, China campus, a year at the Bologna, Italy
campus, and a final semester at the main campus in Washington, DC. She graduated in
2010 with a double MA in International Laws and Organizations and International
Economics, as well as a minor in Human Rights. She then pursued her passion for
refugee rights with a year of fundraising for UNHCR, including a trip to Ecuador to
oversee and review UNHCR and HIAS operations on site. She speaks fluent Mandarin,
conversational Italian, and basic French and Spanish. She intends to pursue a career
assisting asylum seekers in their effort to relocate and rebuilt lives shattered by both
natural and manmade crises.
Nick Brock
Nick graduated summa cum laude from Emory University in 2012 with a degree in
History and a minor in French. During his time as an undergraduate he also spent a
summer in Paris studying French and a year in the United Kingdom at the London School
of Economics studying international history and Russian. After graduating Nick returned
to the LSE to pursue a master’s in Economic History, focusing on global economic
integration and comparative economic development. His dissertation focused on the
declining role of sterling in the post-war period. Nick is fluent in French, conversational
in German and is presently working on improving his Russian. He is interested in
international commercial law and a law career that builds on his experience in Europe.
Ena Cefo
Ena spent her childhood in post-conflict areas, residing in Bosnia and Herzegovina for 7
years and Kuwait for 4 years, where she recognized the need for global initiatives. At the
age of 10, she volunteered with a Sarajevo non-profit that united Catholic, Muslim, and
Eastern Orthodox women, helping them dispel war-fueled tensions and become selfsufficient through their traditional skills. Following her move to the United States, Ena
has worked on alleviating global issues concerning health, food and water safety,
domestic violence, sexual assault, and human rights. In high school, she volunteered
over 200 hours to a free health clinic for low-income and mostly immigrant residents.
Her first two years of college, she worked part-time with an organization dedicated to
improving food and water safety worldwide. Her undergraduate work also included
research for a firm that guides foreign nations in improving their human rights
conditions and an internship in the Sex Offenses and Domestic Violence Division of the
U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington D.C. Ena received her B.A. from the University of
Maryland, double majoring in psychology and criminal justice, aiming to understand
post-conflict and trauma related psychological disorders and differing criminal justice
systems. In the spring of 2011, Ena completed her French language minor at the
University of Nice, France. This past year, she taught English in Shenzhen, China and
educated herself in historical and current issues within the People’s Republic of China
and surrounding East-Asian nations. Ena speaks fluent Serbo-Croatian and is proficient
in French. She plans to pursue a career in international public interest law.
Alice Barrett de Sep
Alice is a J.D. candidate pursuing a career in international migration law and policy. Born
in Nuremberg, Germany, she moved to the United States at age 11. After high school,
she spent a year in Paris, France as an Au Pair and French language student. Alice
graduated from Georgia State University with a B.A. in Community Psychology and a
minor in Latin American Studies. Following college, she interned at the German Federal
Office for Migration in Nuremberg. Alice then pursued extended research on migration
and its potential for community development as a Fulbright Scholar in Guatemala. She
remained in Guatemala for an additional year with Asociación Comunidad Esperanza, a
non-profit organization where she launched Programa Juventud Resiliente - a youth
development program for at-risk middle school students. She also contributed to a rural
health program for low-income mothers. Alice is a native speaker of German and speaks
fluent Spanish and French. She plans to continue learning Poqomchi and Turkish.
Ivana Djak
Ivana graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College in 2011 with a B.A. in
Government and a minor in English. Since graduating, she has worked at the Institute
for Defense Analyses, a federal research center for the Department of Defense, where
she focused on central and east African development and stability issues. During her
studies, Ivana interned at the White House in the Presidential Personnel Office as a part
of the National Security Team. She also interned at the Department of State at the
Consulate in Leipzig, Germany as part of the political and economic affairs teams. As a
program assistant at World Teach, a non-profit that provides educational assistance,
Ivana helped administer the Pacific Islands and Colombia programs. Ivana also worked
as an intern in local government offices in Croatia as part of a research project on
democratization in post-communist Eastern Europe. For her senior thesis on women’s
organizations in post-conflict Balkan nations, she traveled to the region to conduct
archival research and interviews with concentration camp and rape survivors. Ivana was
a research assistant at Harvard’s Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies where
she worked on migration and alienation among Muslims in Western Europe. She is
fluent in German, Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian. Ivana is interested in a broad range of
international legal issues and hopes to pursue a career in human rights and national
security law.
W. Collmann Griffin
Collmann began Georgetown’s joint JD/MSFS program in 2012; he has thus far focused
on international trade but also hopes to explore anti-corruption, energy, investment and
tax law. Collmann graduated from Colgate University in 2009 with a BA in Russian.
Professional experiences include:
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monitoring Russia’s WTO compliance while interning at USTR;
teaching English in Shanxi, China;
translating/editing President Medvedev’s tweets and Prime Minister Putin’s
speeches for the Russian news agency RIA Novosti;
analyzing regional security issues while interning at the US embassy in Yerevan,
Armenia.
Collmann enjoys languages, fly-fishing, non-fiction and travel.
Weiwei He
Weiwei comes from Chengdu (Sichuan, China), the hometown for panda and spicy food.
As a University Scholar she participated in Waseda-NUS double degree program. She
spent three years studying computer science in National University of Singapore, and
two years studying liberal arts in Waseda University (Tokyo). After graduation, she
worked for a year as a consultant in Public Sector Consulting team in Frost & Sullivan. In
the meantime, she volunteered in Nusantara Development Initiative, a social enterprise
which aims to empower Indonesian rural women by training them to become solar lamp
entrepreneurs, who help introduce clean energy to rural villages in Indonesia. Weiwei is
interested in patent law, and would like to utilize her Japanese and Chinese language
skills and pan-Asian experiences to enhance technology exchange between the United
States and Asia in the future. She is a committed Kendo player. She is looking forward to
meeting other Global Law scholars this fall.
Jacqueline Johnston
Jacqueline Johnston grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and graduated from the
University of California, Berkeley in 2010 with a degree in International Political
Economy concentrated in development and human rights issues. Jacqueline spent the
last two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Bulgaria, where she taught English at the
primary school in a rural, predominantly-Roma agricultural village – and much of her
work came to incorporate a focus on the empowerment and integration of this
disadvantaged and severely-marginalized ethnic minority group. In addition to her dayto-day teaching activities, she worked extensively with local educators to develop and
implement modern approaches to pedagogy and classroom management, including a
significant body of supplemental curricular materials, towards the goal of phasing out
extant but antiquated communist-era practices. She also led a number of youth
development and after-school programs, taught a bi-weekly adult English class, began
an English language library that now includes more than two hundred books, and
partnered with local youth leaders on Roma outreach projects. During her time at
Berkeley, Jacqueline interned with the legal aid clinic at a courthouse in Oakland,
California, where she assisted low-income litigants with a range of family law, domestic
violence, and general civil matters. Jacqueline also clerked for a local law firm, taught
SAT prep classes for The Princeton Review, volunteered at an orphanage in Bolivia,
interned at San Francisco city hall, served on an advisory committee to the vice
chancellor, wrote for the student newspaper, served on the executive board of the
campus’ Habitat for Humanity chapter and lead a service trip to the Gulf Coast to build
houses for Hurricane Katrina victims. Jacqueline is interested in international human
rights law, particularly where it intersects with issues of gender and development, and
she hopes one day to be involved with the design and implementation of new policies
and paradigms aimed at improving women’s rights in developing countries. She speaks
fluent Bulgarian and conversational French.
Reed Koenig
Reed graduated from the University of Rochester in 2010. He majored in Religion and
Political Science. During his junior year, he spent a semester living and studying in
Jerusalem. While a student, he interned on a gubernatorial campaign as well as in the
office of Senator Evan Bayh. After graduation, he joined the Peace Corps and spent two
years working in rural Azerbaijan as an Education Volunteer. After completing his
service, Reed returned to the US and spent much of the last year living and working in
Park City, Utah. He is a huge baseball and soccer fan, as well as an avid skier. He is
proficient in Azerbaijani as well as basic Spanish.
Sarah Lohschelder
Sarah grew up in Germany but her interest in international relations and international
law began while spending her sophomore year of high school in Australia. She has
pursued these interests further during her studies at Queen Mary, University of London
from which she graduated in 2013 with a Joint Honors BSc degree in Economics and
Politics. Her dissertation analyzed the rationality of North Korean foreign policy.
Furthermore, she obtained a Certificate of Higher Education in Legal Studies at Birkbeck,
University of London. During her undergraduate years, she interned at the German
Parliament in Berlin as well as the office of a Member of the European Parliament in
Brussels. Sarah also spent a summer in Seoul, South Korea, to work as a research
assistant at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. She is now pursuing a Juris Doctorate
and Master of Science in Foreign Service degree at Georgetown. Sarah is particularly
interested in international public law, comparative law and foreign relations law. She
speaks fluent German, English and French as well as some Korean.
Mina Miljevic
Mina graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania in 2013 with a
B.A. in Communication and a minor in Political Science. She spent a semester studying in
Washington, DC during which she composed an independent research paper on the
international law of cyber war. She has also held several internship positions within the
U.S. government that have helped further develop and fuel her passion for a variety of
international issues. Mina spent about a year interning for the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (F.B.I.), working in financial crimes and public corruption. Then, she spent a
summer in Washington, DC interning at the Department of State in the Bureau of
Intelligence and Research where she was exposed to foreign policy discussions. After
having such exciting and rewarding experiences, she hopes to pursue a legal career in
the government. Mina is also an immigrant from Serbia (former Yugoslavia) and is fluent
in Serbian.
Zana Operta
Zana was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia in 1991 and moved to Tennessee with her family in
1996. She graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of
Tennessee – Knoxville in May 2013 with a degree in political science and a minor in
French. While at UT, Zana was a member of the Haslam Scholars Program, the school’s
premiere honors program. She traveled to China with the program in May of 2011,
where she studied the country’s current political structure and culture. During the
summer of 2012, she interned with the Bosnian Ministry for Human Rights and Refugees
in Sarajevo and completed independent research at the Constitutional Court of Bosnia
and Herzegovina. She is interested in international criminal law and international human
rights law, specifically the prosecution of international war criminals. She enjoys
traveling, reading about the British Royal Family, music, and is an avid Tennessee
Volunteers and Peyton Manning fan. Zana is a native Bosnian speaker and is proficient
in French.
Beth Palkovic
Beth graduated with honors from the Annenberg School of Journalism at USC in
2009. While at USC, Beth reported on various issues, focusing on marginalized
communities of south Los Angeles. She also won an award for her reporting on human
rights violations in Darfur. For the next two years, Beth worked through Americorps as a
5th grade teacher, educating mostly immigrants from Mexico and refugees from Sudan.
While there she earned her Masters in Education at the University of Notre Dame. Beth
continued her passion for providing equal education on a Fulbright grant to Indonesia.
Most of her time was spent teaching English to 500 students at a public vocational high
school. She also spent time volunteering at a local orphanage for abandoned girls and
street kids. While in Indonesia Beth mainly learned the national language, Bahasa
Indonesia, but also used some of the local languages, like Bahasa Mandar and Bugis.
Most recently, she returned to Asia to volunteer in India and Cambodia. She speaks
Indonesian and Spanish, and has also learned some Mandarin and Arabic. The
connections across languages fascinate her and she loves to learn as much as she does
to teach. Beth is interested in a broad spectrum of international legal issues, but hopes
to pursue a career that incorporates her past experiences as a teacher in the US and
Asia.
Jae-Hyong Shim
I was born in South Korea but also had the privilege of growing up in New Delhi, India
where I lived for 12 years with my family before moving to the United States for college.
I completed a double major in International Relations and Economics at NYU and
graduated in the summer of 2008. My undergraduate coursework focused on
international politics with the Middle East as my regional concentration, whereas I also
took several courses on development economics, in which I am also interested. Upon
graduation from college, I returned to Korea to fulfill my mandatory military service.
From late 2008 to 2010, I served at the United Nations Command Security Battalion,
Joint Security Area (UNCSB-JSA), a joint US-Korean Army base, as an interpreter.
Thereafter, I spent four months working in the Energy and Climate Change Division of
the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade before moving on to work at the Global
Green Growth Institute – an international organization based in Seoul, Korea – for 2 and
a half years. While I have yet to decide on a specific area of interest, I do look forward to
studying international law at Georgetown Law and joining the distinguished community
of legal academicians and practitioners.
Kathy Shin
Kathy hails from Hacienda Heights in LA County. She graduated from Pomona College in
2003 with a B.A. in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE). During her junior year,
Kathy studied abroad at University College, Oxford University, where she completed a
tutorial in practical reason and English cinema. After college, Kathy spent a year in
Korea on a Fulbright Fellowship, where she taught English at a middle school in Andong,
South Korea, and began studying the Korean language more earnestly, at the Academy
of Korean Studies in Seongnam. Back in the U.S., Kathy has maintained her interest in
the Korean language and Korean society through translation projects, translating from
Korean to English for researchers in the social sciences as well as a Korean-American
church in the greater Los Angeles area. She has also explored the culinary arts, working
in restaurants, and has spent the last few years tutoring high school students in English.
At Georgetown she aims to pursue comparative studies in taxation law.
Amandeep Singh-Kahlon
Prior to joining the Georgetown University Law Center, Amandeep worked for two years
in Cairo, Egypt through the country’s tumultuous political experiment with democracy.
As a research assistant with the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), a local
rights group, Amandeep carried out comparative legal and policy research to support
various legislative and constitutional initiatives. His work included developing a longterm legal and policy blueprint for non-discrimination and authoring various legislative
and constitutional proposals related to civil liberties and government accountability. He
also provided research and support for an investigation into the killing of protestors at
the infamous "Masapiro March” in 2011. In addition to his professional experiences,
Amandeep was involved in multiple grassroots initiatives. These included Operation
Anti-Sexual Harassment (OpAntiSH), an activist group that documents and responds to
organized, mob sexual assaults at protest sites, as well as humanitarian assistance
efforts for Syrian refugees in Cairo. Through participation in both the Public Interest Law
Scholars program as well as the Global Law Scholars program, Amandeep intends to
maintain an international social justice focus throughout his legal study at Georgetown
University. Amandeep has lived in Egypt, the Palestinian Territories and India, speaks
five languages, and is an avid practitioner of Kundalini Yoga.
Hannelore Sklar
Originally from Wisconsin, Hannelore graduated summa cum laude from Brandeis
University, with a B.A. in International and Global Studies and East Asian Studies in
2010. As a junior, Hannelore studied in Beijing, first at Capital Normal University, and
later at the Beijing Institute of Education. Her senior thesis examined the inefficacy of
equal opportunity and employment legislation in post-market reform China. Now a
proud resident of Washington, DC, Hannelore has spent the last three years working at
Meridian International Center. During her time at Meridian, Hannelore administered the
International Visitor Leadership Program, a short-term exchange program sponsored by
the U.S. Department of State, which brings current and emerging foreign leaders to the
U.S. for three weeks of professional development and cultural exchange. She has also
volunteered as a contributing editor for the International Models Project on Women’s
Rights (IMPOWR), researching and writing content for their online database
documenting women’s rights under law. Following her graduation from Georgetown,
Hannelore would like build a career around her interest in comparative legal issues, in
particular rule of law development in East Asia. Hannelore is proficient in Mandarin
Chinese, and speaks conversational French and Spanish.
Delia Solomon
Delia graduated this year Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude from Emory University
with a double major in International Studies and History and a minor in African Studies.
She spent her childhood living abroad in Mpumalanga, South Africa and is fluent in
Spanish after spending a semester studying abroad at the University of Salamanca in
Spain. She developed an interest in the work of international organizations during her
undergraduate career serving as a four year staff member (and eventually the
Conference Director) for the U.N.-affiliated non-profit, the National High School Model
United Nations Association. The conference’s mission is to promote global issues
education for high school students by simulating the work of the United Nations. Her
Honors Thesis research at Emory explored the U.S. government’s relationship with
apartheid South Africa during the 1974-1976 South African military intervention in the
Angolan Civil War. This research, supported by an Emory Cuttino Fellowship, allowed
her to draw on recently declassified and previously unexamined primary source
materials from both countries. The summer before her senior year of college she had a
chance to apply this long-standing interest in and knowledge of international affairs to
the day-to-day work of a major international law firm by working with the firm’s
international subrogation and recovery practice area. She hopes to use her knowledge
of southern Africa and her background studying Spanish in her future work. She is
specifically interested in legal issues related to emerging markets, international
organizations such as the United Nations, judicial and legal issues confronting a
democratic South Africa, and in international mediation and arbitration.
Jamie Strawbridge
Jamie was born outside of Pittsburgh, graduated from Williams College in 2004 and has
worked as a journalist in Washington, DC for the last eight years. Much of his reporting
focused on conflicts between international trade laws and governmental efforts to
implement policies that promote public health or protect the environment. Most
recently, he served as chief editor of Inside U.S.-China Trade, a weekly newsletter that
covers U.S.-China trade and investment policy. At Georgetown, he hopes to deepen his
understanding of how international legal frameworks can help or hinder the pursuit of
public policy objectives – and he also hopes that he can brush up on his Spanish, which
has gotten rusty in the decade since he lived in Madrid.
Class of 2015
Adina Appelbaum
Adina Appelbaum is pursuing a joint Juris Doctor and Master of Public Policy in
International Policy & Development degree at Georgetown. She is devoted to
helping refugees access meaningful protection and working to improve the rights of
migrants and victims of human trafficking worldwide. Adina spent a year in Cairo, Egypt
as a Fulbright scholar providing legal aid to refugees who had fled from Iraq, Sudan,
Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia through The Resettlement Legal Aid Project, as well as
researching migration issues. She has interned most recently as a at Asylum Access
Ecuador, advocating for Colombian and other refugees at the policy-level, and at the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, assisting Haitians, Cubans and others
seeking safety through legal status in the Caribbean. At Georgetown, Adina is also a
Public Interest Law Scholar. She graduated magna cum laude from Washington
University in St. Louis, where she wrote her senior honors thesis on the Iraqi refugee
crisis and received a B.A. in International Area Studies and Urban Studies.
Katie Bacharach
Katie graduated from the University of Virginia in 2007 with a BA in Foreign Affairs and a
minor in Global Cultures and Commerce. While at UVa, Katie participated in an
international relations and human rights study abroad program in Geneva, Switzerland
and was an active member of UVa’s chapters of Amnesty International and the
community service fraternity, APO. She also interned at the International Centre for
Trade and Sustainable Development in Geneva, at Amnesty International in Washington,
DC and at Human Rights Watch in New York. After graduating, Katie joined the U.S.
Peace Corps as an Environment Volunteer in Madagascar. She spent her first year in
Madagascar working largely with subsistence farmers to improve agricultural techniques
but her service was interrupted when a coup d’état forced the suspension of the Peace
Corps program. A few months later she was selected to be one of eleven volunteers to
return to Madagascar and reopen the Peace Corps program. Once back in Madagascar,
Katie spent a year working in cooperation with an American NGO to improve the
functionality of a small community-based forest management association, develop an
environmental education program and improve an ecotourism project and forest
restoration project. Katie then extended her service for six months in order to work with
a local Malagasy NGO as a supervisor for their environment projects and for a women’s
and children’s rights project. Katie is fluent in Malagasy and has a basic understanding of
French. She intends to pursue a career in international human rights.
Hansang Cho
Han Cho comes from Korea, where he spent the last two years working at the Supreme
Prosecutors' Office as an alternative to the nation's mandatory military service. Before
this, he worked briefly for an environmental NGO in India that concentrates on toxic
waste management in Southern and Southeastern Asia. He also worked as a teaching
assistant at the Ehwa Womans University's School of Translation and Interpretation,
where he aided in writing a specialized dictionary for professional interpreters. Han
graduated from Northwestern in 2009, where he majored in Political Science and
International Studies, while minoring in Japanese Language and Culture. During school
he had the opportunity to intern at the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade,
joining the Office of Kor-US FTA as they were closing up the final renegotiations. While
he had always thought of becoming a diplomat for the Korean government, Han decided
to pursue a career in a more liberal field of international politics, deciding to advance to
law school and study international law. Han is a native speaker of Korean and is fairly
capable in Japanese.
Jordan Cox
A double major in physics and German studies from Brigham Young University, Jordan
wanted to combine his science and language interests into a career in law. Jordan began
his in-depth study of physics by investigating the effect of femtosecond lasers and
inorganic crystals in Orlando and later in Berlin. He became interested in German after a
two-year volunteer service in Frankfurt, Germany. Jordan graduated with honors from
BYU. Following his graduation, he continued his laser research in Berlin as a Fulbright
Scholar. He also worked a year for Pfizer Animal Health Germany at their Berlin
headquarters. For the next two years, Jordan worked through Teach For America as an
8th grade physical science teacher. While there he earned his Masters in Secondary
Education at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Jordan is interested in patent law and
the bilateral movement of technologies between Germany and the United States.
Aubrey De Angelis
Anbrey De Angelis’ interest in international law began when she studied abroad in Santa
Fe, Argentina during her senior year of high school. She graduated with distinction from
the University of Wisconsin – Madison in 2006 with a BA in Latin American, Caribbean
and Iberian Studies, a BA in Communication Arts: Rhetoric and Communication Science
and a certificate in Global Cultures. Her collegiate studies included a semester of study
at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in Santiago, Chile. Following graduation, she
worked as a health volunteer with the Peace Corps in the Fiji Islands. Her work in Fiji
was widely varied and included projects such as working with governmental and nongovernmental organizations to strengthen their health education programs, teaching
high school-level Life Skills classes and conducting health outreach workshops in
community and school settings. Most recently, Aubrey worked as a Senior Federal
Investigator with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In her position,
she investigated cases of employment discrimination and conducted outreach activities
aimed at teaching employees their rights in the workplace and teaching employers their
responsibilities in the workplace. Whereas she has a wide interest in international legal
issues, Aubrey is particularly interested in international business law. Aubrey is
proficient in Spanish and intends on pursuing further language studies.
Chinyere I. (Chi) Emeruwa
Chi graduated from the University of Winnipeg, Canada with a BA in political science.
She served in the Canadian Foreign Service and was posted to The Philippines where she
processed Vietnamese refugees under the UN mandate, and researched policy issues for
the migrant domestic workers program. At further postings to Colombia and Chile, she
was involved in international trade policy including the negotiations for a hemispheric
free trade agreement. Chi left the Foreign Service to earn an MBA from the University
of California, Los Angeles where she won the Jan Roos award for outstanding
achievement in the International Management Fellows program. Transitioning to a
career in business, she was a management consultant and most recently an operations
executive in the global distribution of media and entertainment content. Chi intends to
focus on international intellectual property issues and the legal infrastructure for
investment in emerging markets. She speaks French and Spanish and has traveled
extensively to various regions of the world.
Genevieve Fox
Genny graduated with High Distinction from the University of California, Berkeley in
2011 with a degree in Development Studies. As an undergraduate, she spent a semester
abroad in Córdoba, Spain, where she interned for the European branch of the World Fair
Trade Organization. Passionate about travel and cross-cultural learning, Genny has used
her year since graduating to live and work in Spain, Hawaii, and Nicaragua. In the
summers of 2011 and 2012, she led high school immersion trips in northern Spain
through a non-profit, The Experiment in International Living. In the 3 months she spent
in Nicaragua, Genny volunteered with a Canadian-based non-profit, Waves of Hope,
teaching English and assisting in various community development initiatives in the small
rural community of El Manzano Numero Uno. Genny is fluent in Spanish and excited to
pursue an education and career in International Development Law.
Alexander Galicki
Alexander graduated cum laude from the University of Southern California in 2010. He
majored in International Relations with a concentration on Europe and minored in
Philosophy. While at USC, Alexander completed internships at the Peggy Guggenheim
Collection in Venice, Italy, in the Political-Military Unit of the U.S. Embassy in Berlin and
at Europe Direct (a subsidiary of the European Union) in Florence, Italy. He was also
recognized as a USC Global Scholar and wrote his capstone paper on democratic war
theory and the U.S. interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Upon graduation, Alexander
spent a month interning in the Corporate Department of the private Malaysian law firm
Sharizat, Rashid and Lee. He then completed the Cambridge University CELTA certificate
and has worked as an English teacher for the last two years in Berlin, Germany.
Alexander is a dual citizen of the United States and the United Kingdom and grew up in
England, Norway and Texas. He has acquired proficiency in Italian and German through
coursework during college and while studying at the Università degli Studi di Firenze and
the Goethe-Insitut Berlin.
Gabrielle Gould
Gabrielle graduated from Harvard College in 2011 with a BA in Social Studies. As an
undergrad, she studied French and Arabic and pursued coursework in human rights and
international development. During the fall of her junior year, she studied abroad in Paris
where she took courses on the history of the Middle East and also completed an
internship with L’Institut de Relations Internationales et Stratégiques where she
researched the relationship between international politics and the arms trade and its
effect on human rights issues in the Middle East and Africa. The following summer, she
traveled to Irbid, Jordan to participate in an Arabic language program. While there, she
conducted interviews as part of her senior thesis research on how international
discourse has impacted progress towards realizing greater rights for women in Jordan.
During college, she was a member of a student group that worked on campaigns to
address the use of water boarding during the interrogation of prisoners. Later, she
worked on a campaign to introduce a bill to the Massachusetts State Legislation to close
loopholes related to the role of medical practitioners in interrogation practices. She
later interned with the Satellite Sentinel Project where she tracked and mapped reports
of human rights abuses carried out in the violence leading up to the secession of South
Sudan from Sudan in 2011. Gabrielle plans to pursue a career in human rights and
international law.
Arielle N. Greenbaum
Arielle Greenbaum graduated from Amherst College as an Independent Scholar in 2011.
At Amherst, she designed and executed an interdisciplinary research program, which
bridged the fields of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought, German Studies, and Art
History. Her research examined the Nazi Party’s artistic ideology, legal promulgations,
and despoliation campaign. To deepen her understanding of the jurisprudential and
cultural legacies of World War II, Arielle enrolled at the Courtauld Institute of Art and
University of Oxford during the fall semester of her junior year. In the spring, she
conducted research in archives and museums in London, Paris, The Hague, Kraków, and
Berlin. She received a Fulbright Grant to pursue her postgraduate studies at HumboldtUniversität zu Berlin, where she expanded the purview of her research to include the
restitution and compensation policies instated during the postwar period. She served as
a fellow and affiliate at the Humboldt-Universität Institute for German and International
Criminal Law and Legal History and Jüdisches Museum. She remains interested in
pending restitution claims, issues of jurisdiction and periods of prescription, as well as
the unique legal status afforded to patrimony in a national and global context.
Anna Milena Jurca
Milena is pursuing a career in environmental law, focusing primarily on environmental
law’s international aspects. She has worked for the Heinrich Böll Foundation, a German
environmental non-profit organization in Washington, DC, where she managed several
projects on transatlantic policy and environmental issues in addition to her
responsibilities as outreach manager. She has conducted research and interviews at
mass farming facilities in North Carolina and maintains an interest in the nexus of
agricultural policy, environmental law and food issues. Milena graduated from the
University Trier, Germany in 2009 with an MA in political science, minors in media
studies and German and a Certificate in European Studies. While at the University Trier,
she managed the school’s Ecology Committee and served as member of the Student
Parliament. Milena spent a year and a half at Georgetown University, including half a
year as a visiting researcher with a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange
Service. In her master’s thesis, she explored the use of linguistic devices in the discourse
on terrorism. Milena is a native German speaker and speaks some Portuguese and
Spanish.
Zac Meyer
Hailing from South Dakota, Zac Meyer graduated magna cum laude from the College of
Arts and Sciences at Georgetown University in 2010 with a major in History and a minor
in Classics. When not practicing how to swing a mace he volunteered for the D.C.
Schools program teaching English as a second language to elementary school students
and spent his summers working minimum wage jobs. During his junior year he spent a
semester abroad in southern Turkey at the McGhee Center for Eastern Mediterranean
Studies and developed a deep and abiding love for the people and culture of Turkey.
This led directly to a master's program at Koç University in Istanbul in the department of
Archaeology and Art History where he studied Byzantine history. Although trained as a
historian, Zac is looking forward to continuing his study of international law beyond the
14th century and the great controversy of the Three Popes. Zac maintains a proficiency
in Turkish and an understanding of various extinct languages.
Meg Parker
Meg Parker is a proud native of Phoenix, Arizona, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from
the University of California, Berkeley in 2010 with degrees in Rhetoric and French.
During her time at Berkeley, Meg spent a semester abroad at the Université de Paris IV
studying French language and art history. Meg hopes to continue her interest in the
study of translation, discourse, and both persuasive and performative speech as they
relate to law. At Cal, Meg volunteered her time to aid the low-income community of
Alameda County at the East Bay Community Law Center, and served as the Vice
President of UC Berkeley’s Phi Alpha Delta Pre-Law Fraternity International. During the
summer of 2008, Meg participated in a student-initiated service project to New Orleans,
Louisiana, to support communities affected by Hurricane Katrina, especially focusing on
the Cajun French and Creole communities. After graduating, Meg participated in the
Teaching Assistant Program in France (TAPIF), where she taught English to primary
school children in Lyon, France. Throughout her experience in Lyon, Meg’s most
influential relationships were with a group of young women at Lycée Al Kindi, France’s
largest Muslim school, where Meg volunteered by teaching a weekly English
conversation class. Meg speaks fluent French and is eager to explore more ways of
incorporating her fascination with language into her future law practice. Meg is honored
and enthusiastically looking forward to joining the Global Law Scholars community this
fall.
Jessica Polebaum
Jessica Polebaum holds a B.A. in religion from Middlebury College, where her
undergraduate work culminated in an honors thesis on ijtihad—a concept from classical
Islamic law—and its use in modern reform movements. Upon graduating in 2008, she
received the Ann and Edward Meyers Religion Prize for exceptional ability in the
understanding, expression, and integration of ideas in the area of religious studies. She
joins the Law Center after spending three years as a program and editorial associate at
the Social Science Research Council. She continues her work there as a contributing
editor for The Immanent Frame, the Council’s collective academic blog on secularism,
religion, and the public sphere. She has studied, volunteered, and worked in Zaragoza,
Spain, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and enjoyed a short stint as an ESL teacher in
Virudhunagar, India.
Joe Shantz
Joe Shantz graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2009 with a B.S. in
Environmental Studies, focusing on Society & Policy. At CU he was a Resident Advisor in
the dormitories and worked as Housing Promotions Coordinator for the CU
Environmental Center. Between Junior and Senior year Joe worked as a Collegiate
Leaders in Environmental Health Intern at the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. After graduating from CU, Joe backpacked through Europe
for a summer before coming back to Denver to volunteer on quality assurance research
at The Children’s Hospital. In January of 2010 he moved to New Zealand to live, visit
family, and work on local vineyards until his Peace Corps Service was scheduled to begin
in June. Five months later he left for Ghana, West Africa with the Peace Corps. Over his
two years of service he worked on a range of projects, including teaching English for a
term, helping to run a Girls Leading Our World camp, assisting an organic farming FBO
(Farmer Based Organization) to procure and erect pest-proof fencing, helping to write
grants, and working to build and strengthen associations. However, the majority of Joe’s
time in Ghana was spent building a ten-year, hundred-volunteer program focused on
developing all levels of the cashew industry in Ghana; he worked with farmers,
associations, local businesses, Peace Corps staff, international NGOs, international
businesses, exporters, and other Peace Corps Volunteers to develop the Cashew
Initiative. While in Ghana Joe mainly learned the predominant language, Twi, but also
dabbled in some of the more obscure local languages. At GULC Joe plans to focus on
international law and to participate in the joint degree program to obtain a Masters in
Science of Foreign Service at Georgetown.
Gil Shefer
Gil Shefer graduated magna cum laude from the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at
New York University in 2010 with a degree in Economics. While at NYU, Gil researched
issues at the intersection of national security and the law, interning for three years at
the Center on Law and Security at NYU Law. Upon graduation, Gil became a legal intern
for the Office of the Prosecutor at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, working on the
case of Charles Taylor, the former President of Liberia. Gil later returned to New York to
serve as Visiting Fellow at the Center on Law and Security, focusing his research on
Africa and the Middle East. In 2011, Gil became an economic consultant for the World
Bank office in Kigali, Rwanda, where he led a tourism sector study under the supervision
of Senior Economist Birgit Hansl. While in Rwanda, Gil also served as a pro-bono microfinance advisor for the Rwandan Minister of Gender and Family Promotion, the
Honorable Aloisea Inyumba. Gil advised the Ministry on the initial stages of an
innovative micro-finance strategy for rural women. Gil’s areas of interest include
international litigation and other areas of commercial law.
Justin Simeone
Justin is a PhD candidate in Politics and Social Policy at Princeton University. His
doctoral research concentrates on international relations and comparative politics, with
an emphasis on international law and migration policy. During 2011-2012, Justin was a
Scholar in Residence at the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice within New York
University School of Law. As a Liman Public Interest Law Fellow, he co-authored a
human rights report entitled, “Yon Je Louvri: Reducing Vulnerability to Sexual Violence in
Haiti’s IDP Camps.” Justin has presented related research on international law and
human rights at conferences organized by several organizations, including the American
Society of International Law, the Midwest Political Science Association, and the Center
for Economic and Social Rights. In 2008-2009, Justin received a UK Fulbright Scholarship
to study member state cooperation on migration policy within the European Union. He
subsequently completed an M.Sc. in Politics and Government in the European Union at
the London School of Economics and Political Science. Prior to postgraduate study,
Justin graduated summa cum laude with BA degrees in History and Political Science
from the University of Mary Washington. During 2007-2010, he also served as Board of
Directors Chairperson for the non-profit organization, Students Helping Honduras,
which raised and distributed more than $1.2 million to empower children and families
through access to homes, education, and microfinance. Justin has conducted field
research related to human rights in several countries, including Haiti, Israel, and the
United Kingdom. He speaks Spanish.
Michael P. Smith
Michael Smith graduated from the United States Military Academy in 2006 with a
Bachelor of Science in International Relations and French. While at West Point, Michael
studied in Senegal and France through the Foreign Academy Exchange Program. Upon
graduating, he was commissioned as an infantry officer in the U.S. Army. During his
time in the military, Michael served two tours throughout Iraq, totaling approximately
two and a half years. While in the military, Michael also graduated with a Master of
Business Administration from the University of Colorado. Upon leaving Active Duty
military service, Michael worked as a contracted Peace Support Operations trainer for
the U.S. Department of State’s Africa Contingency Operations Training and Assistance
(ACOTA) program. He served throughout Africa, training partner countries in
peacekeeping operations. Michael’s professional and academic interests include
international and environmental law, domestic and foreign policy, and veterans issues.
Michael is passionate in outdoor adventure recreation. He is fluent in French, and
conversational in Spanish and Arabic.
Libbie Walker
Libbie was born and raised in the United States, Libbie Goldberg moved to Israel in 2005
to study at Tel Aviv University, graduating magna cum laude with a degree in Middle
Eastern and African History. She then continued on to a Masters degree in the same
department, with a focus on modern Turkish history. Libbie has coordinated an
international workshop on the Arab-Israeli Conflict, bringing scholars from around the
world to Israel for an intensive program of travel and lectures with Israeli and
Palestinian academics and politicians. She also spent a summer in Cairo, Egypt in 2008
taking intensive Arabic language classes to further her studies. During her MA, Libbie
was awarded the Suleyman Demirel Scholarship for Contemporary Turkish Studies to
partake in the Turkish Language and Culture Program at Bogazici University in Istanbul,
Turkey for two months. Libbie is completely fluent in Hebrew, having lived in Israel for
the past seven years and studying in Hebrew for both of her degrees. She is also reading
proficient in Modern Standard Arabic and Turkish, and has intermediate level speaking
skills in the latter. Libbie is interested in a broad spectrum of international legal issues,
but hopes to pursue a career that incorporates her vast experiences in the Middle East.
Class of 2014
Andrew Adelman
Andrew Adelman graduated with High Honors from the University of California,
Berkeley in 2010 with dual degrees in Public Health and Development Studies and a
minor in Arabic. While at Berkeley, he studied in Jordan and volunteered teaching
English at a Girls High School. While in college, he worked with an international NGO
that provides tertiary medical care facilities in the developing world, providing project
assistance to multiple international efforts in Armenia, Honduras, and Africa. Upon
graduation, Andrew received the American Jewish World Service World Partners
Fellowship to work in rural India for 11 months with HALO Medical Foundation, an NGO
providing primary medical care and women’s empowerment programs to rural
communities. Although interested in a wide range of international legal issues, he is
looking forward to exploring the relationship between international development and
health. Andrew speaks Arabic and conversational Marathi.
Khaled Alrabe
Khaled graduated from Harvard College in the fall of 2010 with a degree in government
and a minor in environmental science and public policy. He later went on to obtain a
master's degree in comparative politics from the London School of Economics. Khaled is
interested in human rights and democratic reform in the Middle East, as well as the
development of transnational commercial law in the Persian Gulf region. A Kuwaiti
national, he has helped run an ongoing NGO project aimed at improving the rights of
Kuwait's migrant domestic workers. Additionally, he has interned at the Kuwait Mission
to the United Nations and the Foreign Ministry of Kuwait. He has also worked for the
Internet and Democracy project at Harvard’s Berkman Center, where he analyzed prodemocracy blogs from all over the Arab world. Between his undergraduate studies and
his time in London, Khaled interned at an international law firm, SNR Denton, and
discovered his interest in private international law, particularly international arbitration.
At LSE, Khaled focused his research on the development of democracy in Kuwait in the
1930s. He is a native Arabic speaker and has acquired proficiency in German through
coursework in college and Berlin.
Jonis A.C. Belu-John
Jonis graduated from Hobart College with a bachelor of arts in political science and
French, minoring in African studies. During his undergraduate career, Jonis was an
involved student leader as student trustee, and president of the Sankofa Black Student
Union. As a junior in college, Jonis also spent a semester abroad in Senegal studying
modern African politics and economics at the Cheik Anta Diop University in Dakar,
Senegal. While there, Jonis co-authored a photo documentary about the plight of
orphaned street children - known locally as Talibé - in Senegal. This research led to the
creation of a small non-profit organization that advocated for the rights of abused
children in Senegal, and worldwide. After graduation in 2004, Jonis began working at
Kirkland & Ellis LLP in Washington, DC, as a paralegal. In that role, Jonis was able to
work on an array of cases including as a translator and aid to a Cameroonian native
seeking political asylum in America. In the summer of 2010, Jonis left Kirkland and
began teaching English in Osaka, Japan with the Japanese Exchange Teaching (JET)
Program. As an educator, Jonis not only taught high school English, but also
international cooperation and linguistic appreciation to his students and the greater
Osaka community through community workshops and volunteer activities. Jonis is
fluent in French and Krio, and conversational in Spanish and Japanese.
Alexandra (Lexie) Calistri
Alexandra (Lexie) graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Wake Forest University with a
Bachelor of Arts in English in 2010. As an undergrad she studied in Sicily and Florence,
where she interned at a private Italian law firm. Lexie returned to Italy to spend the
year following graduation teaching on a Fulbright Scholarship. The summer prior to
starting at Georgetown, she graduated with a Masters of Art in Italian from Middlebury
College. In addition to Italian, she has studied Latin and Spanish. She is specifically
interested in international criminal law.
Anne Marie Carson
Anne Marie Carson took her first step toward becoming a Global Law Scholar as a junior
in high school by boarding a plane to Uberaba, Brazil for a yearlong Rotary Youth
Exchange. During this experience she used a background in Spanish to develop
Portuguese fluency and a keen interest in global interconnectedness. Spring 2009, Anne
Marie graduated magna cum laude from Grand Valley State University (Allendale,
Michigan) with a double major in International Relations and French and a minor in
Women and Gender Studies. Anne Marie’s extensive undergraduate international
experience includes two weeks of research on Holocaust remembrance in Germany and
Poland, three month French language intensive program and internship at Oxfam France
in Paris, a semester at the Ecole Supérieure des Sciences Commerciales d’Angers
(ESSCA) with coursework in French on International Relations, Trade and Economics,
and a summer study abroad partnership with the American University of Cairo. In March
of 2009, Anne Marie was a participant in the Women’s International League for Peace
and Freedom Practicum in Advocacy at the United Nations 53rd Convention on the
Status of Women. Anne Marie’s International Relations Capstone Thesis was on the
International Legal Evolution of Genocide. Upon completing her undergraduate degree,
Anne Marie returned to France as a pre-school through 5th grade English teacher. Anne
Marie’s diverse international experiences have fostered a focus on International
Economic and Trade Law.
Ellsa Rui Chen
Ellsa Chen joins the GLS program from Shenzhen, China, where she had lived before
going to Georgetown University to pursue a Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics and Japanese.
As a native speaker of Mandarin, Cantonese and several other Chinese dialects, she is
also fluent in Japanese. She spent her junior year of college in the exchange program to
Waseda, Japan and traveled to other parts of the country. As a part of the university's
Honors program, she completed a thesis on paradigm shifts on studies of Japanese
litigation rates in the last three decades based on her research conducted both in Japan
and in the US and won the Mitsubishi Award for undergraduate studies of Japan. She
also spent three of her college summers in Japan to polish her language and to gain
experience in industries hotel management and commercial banking. Ellsa has a broad
interest in international legal issues, but hopes to pursue a career closely tied to Asia
upon receiving her J.D. degree.
Wen-Chuan Dai
Wen-Chuan Dai hails from New Hampshire and concentrated in English at Brown-spending her junior abroad at Oxford and graduating Brown with Honors in Expository
Writing. She spent the year after college researching public education about the Nanjing
Massacre as a Fulbright Scholar to China, thereafter earning her masters in East Asian
Studies at Yale. She has trained professionally in modern dance at The Ailey School in
New York City and has also worked as a legal assistant in immigration.
She recently assisted an attorney at The Door-- a New York nonprofit, in providing
legal consultation to Chinese youth brought to the U.S. via the, 'Snakehead'
international trafficking ring. She is fluent in Mandarin Chinese and is interested in
comparative U.S.-China law.
Ashley Gaillard
Ashley graduated cum laude from the University of Florida in 2009. In three years, she
completed a double major in History and French, with minors in Russian and Business
Administration. Through her French studies, Ashley earned her Diplôme de Français des
Affaires from the Paris Chamber of Commerce in 2007. She also studied abroad in
Moscow at the Russian State University for the Humanities during the summer of 2008.
She has worked with the Guardian ad Litem program in Gainesville as a volunteer
advocate for children in the dependency court system. Ashley graduated with her
Master’s degree in International Business from the University of Florida in 2010. Her
thesis project analyzed the competitive profile and corporate strategies of Russia’s
largest private oil company, Lukoil. She returned to Russia with the UF MBA Program on
a study tour, which examined the growth and development of Russian business and
capital markets. This past summer, Ashley worked in the International Migration Law
Unit at the International Organization for Migration in Geneva, Switzerland. She is
currently involved in the International Women’s Human Rights Clinic, where she is
working on litigation challenging discriminatory provisions of Kenya’s inheritance laws,
and in the International Migrants’ Bill of Rights project at Georgetown. Ashley’s foreign
languages are French, Russian, and beginning Spanish and her legal interests include
project finance and the intersection of human rights and development.
Elizabeth Gibson
Elizabeth has worked as a professional journalist for three years and now plans to
pursue a career in international human rights law with a particular interest in refugee
and humanitarian emergencies. Some of her stories chronicling humanitarian relief
efforts in Haiti and Myanmar have been posted on the United Nations’ ReliefWeb, and
her works have been published in newspapers in the United States, Germany, China,
Thailand and India among others. She interned with Agence France-Presse in Bangkok in
2008, after attending a seminar on international issues at Sciences Po Paris. Since then,
she has worked at The Columbus Dispatch, where her articles covered topics ranging
from local government and court issues to bodysnatching and extortion in Haiti and
banking regulations blocking Somali refugees from sending remittances to Africa.
Elizabeth earned both a bachelor’s and master’s degree within four years at the Medill
School of Journalism at Northwestern University and graduated at the top of her
master’s class in 2008. During her master’s program, she held a U.S. Senate Press Pass
and covered the Pentagon for the Medill News Service. She attended former President
George W. Bush’s final State of the Union address as a reporter. Although her primary
second language is French, Elizabeth also has studied bits of Arabic, Japanese and
Spanish.
Kirsten A. Harmon
Kirsten Harmon comes to the Law Center after spending the past two years working for
the Arias Foundation for Peace and Human Progress, a non-governmental organization
based in Costa Rica, where she has focused on raising awareness of the human security
impacts of the arms trade and promoting arms control mechanisms at the national,
regional and international levels. In that capacity she has advised the Permanent
Mission of Costa Rica to the United Nations in the negotiations of the Arms Trade Treaty
(ATT), as well as in the revision of the United Nations Instrument for the Reporting of
Military Expenditures. Kirsten graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude from
Georgetown University in 2009, receiving a BA in Comparative Literature with a
certificate in Latin American Studies and a minor in French. She completed a thesis in
comparative literature exploring the concept of a “Global South” in the fiction of
William Faulkner and Gabriel García Márquez which received the Georgetown
Comparative Literature Department Award and the 2010 American Comparative
Literature Association (ACLA) Undergraduate Presidential Prize, as well as a Latin
American Studies thesis examining transitional justice in post-Pinochet Chile. Upon
graduating from Georgetown University, Kirsten also received the Katherine Kraft Medal
for her commitment to social justice. Though she hails from Northern California, travel
is among Kirsten’s greatest passions, particularly in Latin America where she also
studied at the Universidad Católica in Valparaiso, Chile. She is fluent in Spanish, and has
also studied Portuguese and French.
Alexander Kamel
Alexander graduated summa cum laude from The University of Texas Pan American in
2010 with a B.A. in Political Science and a special focus on business administration.
During his senior year, Alexander became a Bill Archer Fellow and interned for the
Department of Justice in Washington, DC. This experience further developed his interest
in politics, and he intends to pursue a career in public service. After graduation,
Alexander moved to Austin, TX to work as an officer of the Texas House of
Representatives. Growing up in Mexico City, Alexander developed an interest in legal
issues as they relate to international corporate business. Alexander has spent most of
the past six years living and studying in the Rio Grande Valley along the US-Mexico
border. His first language is Spanish, and he is also proficient in French. He enjoys
international travel, exploring new foods, art, and playing tennis. Alexander looks
forward to joining the Global Law Scholars community this fall."
Shelby Leighton
Shelby joins the Law Center after working as a Research Associate for the Middle East
and Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). While at CFR she
conducted research for two books, one on trends in global democracy and one on the
Middle East during the Cold War, as well as numerous articles, including an article she
co-authored for the Boston Globe. She graduated cum laude in 2009 with a BA in
International Relations and Psychology from Claremont McKenna College. Her senior
honor thesis, A Context for Peace: Domestic Assumptions and the Camp David II
Negotiations, won the award for best senior thesis in International Relations. During
college, she studied abroad in Amman, Jordon, where she conducted independent field
research on national and religious identity. She also worked at the regional offices of
Seeds of Peace in Tel Aviv and Ramallah, planning programming, classes, and social
events for Israeli and Palestinian teenagers, and was an intern at the Embassy of Jordon,
the American Islamic Congress, and CFR’s International Institutions and Global
Governance program. While at Claremont McKenna, Shelby founded a Model United
Nations team that grew to over thirty members attending four national conferences per
year, worked as a research assistant at the Center for Human Rights Leadership, and
served on the executive board of the international relations society. She is proficient in
Spanish and Arabic and conversational in Hebrew. She is interested in International Law
with a focus on conflict resolution and international organizations.
Greta Mattessich
Greta is pursuing the MSFS-JD dual degree at Georgetown. During undergraduate years,
she studied abroad at the University of León in León, Spain, and at Yunnan Normal
University in Kunming, Yunnan Province, China. She earned her B.A. in Asian Studies
from the University of Vermont in 2009, graduating cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. Her
Honors thesis, entitled “Expressions of Ancient Chinese Poetry,” was a collection of
fictional works based on ancient Chinese poems, permitting her to indulge her creative
side while analyzing ancient Chinese literature. After graduation, Greta moved to Cape
May County, New Jersey, where she co-founded a communications firm serving
municipalities and other entities, providing assistance in project management, internal
communications, and media relations. Greta speaks Spanish and Mandarin Chinese, and
enjoys Bikram yoga, piano, and chess. She is interested in Chinese law and international
trade policy. As a prelude to her first year in the joint degree program, this summer she
is spending a month brushing up on Mandarin Chinese and martial arts at Siping Shaolin
Martial Arts Academy in northern China.
Damian Privitera
Damian received his BA from Wesleyan University in 2011 where he pursued a double
major in Government and French Studies with a Certificate in International Relations. He
has interned in the New York State Executive Chamber and the New York State Energy
Research and Development Authority working on economic recovery and residential
energy policy respectively. Damian spent the fall of his junior year studying at Reid Hall
and the Collège Internationale de Philosophie in Paris. Most recently, he worked as a
TOEFL instructor, preparing international students for their own studies abroad. His
language is French and his interests range from international criminal law and
transitional justice to international environmental law and beyond.
Mia Psorn
Mia spent her 1L summer in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, interning for the Boston
Center for International Justice and, on an ad hoc basis, for the Prosecutor’s Office of
Bosnia and Herzegovina, where she worked on issues related to war crimes, crimes
against humanity, and genocide. She graduated magna cum laude from Brown
University in 2007 with honors in International Relations. Her honors thesis analyzed the
evolution of international humanitarian law in prosecuting sexual violence committed
during conflicts, with Bosnia and Herzegovina as a case study. Before her junior year,
she spent half the summer interning in the chambers of Hon. Judge Richard Berman in
the U.S. District Court for the SDNY, and the other half of the summer improving her
Italian language skills at the Accademia Europea di Firenze in Florence, Italy. From
Florence, she moved to Paris, France, where she spent her junior year. Prior to starting
at Georgetown University Law Center, Mia worked for two years at Human Rights
Watch as an associate in the International Justice Program. Afterward, she spent nine
months in Zagreb, Croatia, as a Fulbright fellow researching war crimes trials conducted
by the Croatian judiciary. She investigated what improvements had been made over the
past two decades and what shortcomings still remained. At Georgetown, she is on the
staff of the Georgetown Journal of International Law. She is also currently a student
lawyer in Georgetown’s International Women’s Human Rights Clinic, where she is
working on challenging the constitutionality of unequal inheritance rights of Muslim
women in Kenya. Mia is a native Bosnian speaker, fluent in French, and proficient in
Italian. She is interested in human rights and international criminal law, and is pursuing
Georgetown’s Refugee and Humanitarian Emergencies Certificate.
Rachel Rosenfeld
Rachel has lived in Washington, DC for two years while working with the Environment
and Natural Resources Division of the Department of Justice as an honors paralegal
specialist in Environmental Enforcement. Rachel volunteers with the DC Bar/Bread for
the City in a free legal clinic and participates in EcoWomen DC and a Portuguese
Language Club. Before moving to DC, Rachel worked with Fragomen LLP, an
international immigration law firm, in London, UK. In addition to working with US and
UK corporate immigration law, Rachel pursued a business diploma with Cambridge
University in Cambridge, UK as a Mountbatten Fellow. Rachel graduated Cum Laude in
2008 from Claremont McKenna College as a McKenna Achievement Award Merit
Scholar with an honors thesis in International Relations and a focus on Latin American
Studies. At Claremont, Rachel worked as a Teaching Assistant at Harvey Mudd College
and Joint Sciences in Energy and the Environment. She also worked in the Development
Office, fundraising for student scholarships. Rachel was a founding member of the
Rotaract Claremont Colleges Chapter, an editor for the Forum newspaper, President of
the Student Alumni Relations Committee, and participated in the International Relations
Society. During her undergraduate time she underwent summer and semester study
abroad programs in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil at Universidade Federal da Bahia, and in
São Paulo, Brazil at Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo. While in São Paulo,
Rachel interned with the Brazilian Leadership Institute as a summer research Kravis
Leadership Fellow studying community leadership. She also worked as a Keck
International Strategic Studies Fellow and McKenna International Fellow summer intern
and translator with Miranda Correia Amendoeira & Associados, a corporate Portuguese
law firm, in Lisbon, Portugal. Her languages include advanced Portuguese and Spanish.
She is interested in international environmental law, with a focus in clean air and energy
sources. Rachel loves to travel, and has spent a few months over the past three years
travelling in Europe, the Middle East, and Northern Africa. She plans to continue to
travel, study, and work abroad during her time at GULC.
Justin Schwegel
Justin comes to the GLS Program from Minnesota State University Moorhead where he
received a bachelor’s degree in political science and cultural anthropology in the spring
of 2007. Following a brief internship with Congressman Jim Oberstar Justin moved to
the Fouta Djallon Highlands of Guinea, West Africa where he served the United States
Peace Corps for two years. As a public health volunteer he conducted trainings in topics
ranging from nutrition and vaccination to malaria prevention and female genital
mutilation. Justin also provided oversight for mosquito net distributions and taught
English to local high school students in a combination of French and Fulani, both of
which he speaks at an advanced level. After spending two months teaching French in
Northern Minnesota, Justin volunteered in Chimbote, Peru for a Los Amigos del Padre
Juan, a Catholic aid organization. While in Peru, Justin taught urban agricultural
techniques to local youth and assisted in community hospice care. He also learned
conversational Spanish. Inspired by the relationships he forged with refugees, both in
Guinea and at home, he plans to focus on international human rights law.
Melissa Stewart
Melissa is a second year law student pursuing a certificate in Refugees and
Humanitarian Emergencies. At Georgetown, she is a staff member of the Georgetown
Immigration Law Journal, International Migrants Bill of Rights, and has served as a
coordinator of the Georgetown Haiti Coalition and as an Associate at the GULC Human
Rights Institute. She also has an interest in constitutional law and spent her 1L summer
as a research assistant for Professor Louis Michael Seidman. Melissa joins the Global
Law Scholars Program from Boston, MA where she worked as the Assistant to Ophelia
Dahl, the Executive Director of Partners In Health. Following the devastating earthquake
in Haiti, Melissa worked with a team in Boston managing the response to the disaster,
focusing on coordinating Ms. Dahl's media engagements, development
work, and traveled to PIH's sites in Central Haiti and Port-au-Prince. Prior to
her time with Partners In Health, Melissa worked as a Project Coordinator at
the Harvard Initiative for Global Health managing global health research grants funded
by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Melissa graduated magna cum laude
from Butler University in 2006. During her undergraduate career, she was
awarded the Public Policy and International Affairs Fellowship to attend the University
of Michigan's Ford School of Public Policy PPIA Junior Summer Institute. Melissa has
spent time abroad in Haiti, France, Austria, Italy, Hungary, Switzerland, the Czech
Republic, Costa Rica, and Mexico.
Robert D. Stewart
Robert comes to us from Ohio University’s Linguistics Department, where he was fulltime visiting faculty in the English Language Improvement Program (2007-2011). During
that time he completed his MA in linguistics (2008) and presented several papers on
technology and pedagogy at international conferences. In 2009 Robert translated
hundreds of original documents into German for a documentation of German-American
relations since 9/11. (published as Konsens, Krise und Konflikt by the German Federal
Agency for Civic Education). From 2005-2007 Robert lived in Leipzig as a graduate
student (studying linguistics, language pedagogy, and translation sciences) and language
consultant. He there worked with a variety of clients, training professionals from
companies such as Telekom, Hochtief, and Schenker in English for Specific Purposes
(e.g., law, accounting, logistics, IT, engineering). Robert also translated and edited
articles and documents for publication for clients such as The Financial Times: Germany,
/SEIBERT//MEDIA, and the Beilstein Institute. From 2003-2004 Robert was an instructor
for German language and culture at the Ohio University-Leipzig European Center; during
that time he translated research reports for publication for a research group funded by
IBM, Ecco, and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. From 20012003 Robert was a TA in Austria through the Fulbright-affiliated Austrian-American
Education Commission. Robert graduated cum laude from the Honors Tutorial College at
Ohio University in 2001 (history and German major certificate). He spent 1999-2000 at
the University of Leipzig studying history and German literature. His honors thesis
examined the Holocaust denier David Irving’s libel trial in London.
Meher Talib
Meher Talib holds a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations with a concentration in
Culture, Gender and Global Issues from the University of Southern California and a
Master of Science in Global Politics from the London School of Economics and Political
Science. She joins the Global Law Scholars at Georgetown University Law Center with
experience at the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
in Malaysia and a non-profit organization, the US Committee for Refugees and
Immigrants. In 2008, Talib received a Fulbright grant to research the social significance
of urban female vocal artists in Morocco and a Critical Language Scholarship to study
Arabic also in Morocco. She is interested in international law relating to migration. Talib
wrote her masters dissertation on the international refugee regime. She also coauthored "What Do Global Migrants Rights Agendas Have to Learn from History? A Six-
Case, 30-Year Analysis of International Norm Development." Talib speaks Arabic,
Spanish, French and Urdu in varying degrees of fluency.
Zoee Lynn Turrill
In 2009, Zoee Lynn Turrill graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Magna Cum Laude from the
University of Denver with a double major in International Studies and Spanish. After
studying abroad in Granada, Spain in 2007 she worked as a peer advisor for her
university’s Office of Internationalization. In 2008 she spent time in Bosnia working to
create a sustainable peace process by bringing together children from different ethnic
groups in the same classroom. Later, she and her co-chair of the Sustainability
Committee were honored by now Colorado Governor Hickenlooper with the official
declaration of a day of celebration in recognition of their work to bring Bike Sharing to
Denver. As an environmental organizer in Montana she directed a summer canvass
office to protect Glacier National Park from oil and gas drilling. Her team broke the all
time fundraising record for an office in Montana; raising over $111,000. In her spare
time, Zoee enjoys traveling, hiking, backpacking, and, above all, skiing.