HRP Announces Recipients of 2026-2027 Henigson Fellowship
We are excited to announce that HRP has awarded its 2026-27 Henigson Fellowship to Namashya Karuna Arachchige LLM ‘26 and Tupalishe Mulwafu LLM’26.
HRP’s post-graduate fellowships are designed to help launch the careers of students who have demonstrated great promise as human rights-engaged students and advocates while at HLS. Fellows are placed with human rights organizations working under challenging circumstances. In light of the ravages accelerated by climate change, wars, growing authoritarianism and worldwide inequality, HRP reaffirms its commitment to supporting the careers of young professionals devoted to international human rights and social justice. Learn more about the new fellows and their projects below.
Namashya Ratnayake is a Sri Lankan attorney with research interests in constitutional law, human rights and development. She will be a Henigson Fellow with the Law & Society Trust (LST) to advance access to justice for persons affected by microfinance-based predatory loan schemes in Sri Lanka. Through the fellowship she aims to partner with communities to build legal knowledge, collective power, and strategic pathways for change. This work will build upon her experience prior to attending HLS where she worked under a prominent human rights lawyer and practiced constitutional and public interest litigation. Among other things, she was part of legal teams that challenged the constitutionality of the Economic Transformation Bill, the Microfinance and Credit Regulatory Authority Bill, and the Online Safety Bill before the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka.
Namashya holds an LL.B. from the Faculty of Law, University of Colombo and a B.Sc. in International Development from the University of London (International Programmes). While at HLS, Namashya worked in the International Human Rights Clinic on an ongoing campaign to negotiate a “Torture-Free Trade Treaty,” served as the Co-Programming Director for HLS Advocates for Human Rights, was an article editor at the Harvard Law and Policy Review, and part of the public interest committee of the Women’s Law Association.
Tupalishe Mulwafu is a Malawian public interest lawyer who will serve as a Henigson Fellow with the Pan African Lawyers Union (PALU). Her work will include extractive sector accountability, cross-border advocacy, capacity building, and strategic litigation within the African regional human rights system. The Henigson Fellowship marks a deliberate transition from domestic public interest practice to regional and international human rights advocacy.
Prior to attending Harvard Law School, she served as a Senior Legal Aid Advocate at the Malawi Legal Aid Bureau, where she represented marginalized communities in land disputes, labour violations, and criminal justice matters. She holds an LL.B. and a B.A. in Humanities from the University of Malawi.
While at HLS, she conducted research on the implications of the EU Green Deal for African developmental sovereignty and won first place at the MIT African Business Challenge 2026 as part of a team that designed AfriLex, a platform to help legal practitioners and courts more efficiently navigate African legal systems. She aims to contribute to public interest and human rights law across Africa through regional litigation, capacity building, and policy reform.