News

HRP is pleased to announce its 2022 summer fellowship cohort: Madeleine Rogers JD’22, Andrew Santana JD’23, Ishita Petkar JD’24, Zoe Shamis JD’24 and Julia Lee JD’24.

Summer fellowships for human rights internships are a central part of the Harvard Law School human rights experience and provide rich professional, personal, and intellectual opportunities. Many students and alumni/ae who are committed to human rights were introduced to the field through an internship. Interns work for at least eight weeks with nongovernmental or intergovernmental organizations advancing human rights with an international focus.

You can find the student bios below.

Andrew Santana will intern with International Rights Advocates, working on class action litigation on behalf of the survivors of human rights abuses in Latin America. He graduated from Cornell in 2013 with a B.A. in government and received a M.P.P. from the University of Oxford in 2020, where his research focused on application of international human rights law to freedom of expression online. Professionally, Andrew has worked in various communications and political roles for Jerry Brown, Kamala Harris, and Robert Reich. Last summer, he worked with International Rights Advocates on a wide range of human rights matters before federal courts. 

Ishita Petkar will intern at EarthRights International in Washington D.C. She will work with their litigation and legal advocacy team to further corporate accountability for environmental and human rights violations. Prior to law school, Ishita directed policy advocacy at the International Accountability Project, an NGO dedicated to furthering community-led development and holding development banks accountable for the human rights impacts of their investments. Her masters thesis interrogated the varying definitions of free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) held by Indigenous and corporate stakeholders in the international development process. Ishita holds a B.A. from the University of Toronto in English Literature and Indigenous Studies, and an M.A. in Human Rights from Columbia University. 

Julia Lee will intern with Corporate Accountability Lab in Chicago, working on their combating forced labor, transitional justice, and ethical intellectual property projects. Julia is interested in international human rights and criminal law, and she hopes to work in Southeast Asia one day. Prior to law school, she spent a summer researching immigrant access to health care and social services in the Bom Retiro neighborhood of São Paulo, Brazil. She also worked in venture capital, education, and public relations in South Korea. She graduated summa cum laude from Emory University with a B.A. in English and minor in Global Health. 

Madeleine Rogers will be interning with the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance on their Constitution Building Project. Working with the IDEA, Madeleine will focus in particular on constitutional formation processes in post-conflict zones, and analyzing strategies to ensure institutions capable of safeguarding human rights. She hopes to use this research to build on her interest in the role of governmental institutions and the rule of law on transnational human rights issues such as human trafficking and corporate accountability. Madeleine holds a BFA from the Juilliard School; she hails originally from Portland, Oregon.

Zoe Shamis will intern with the Clooney Foundation for Justice, working in their TrialWatch division, which monitors global criminal trials for human rights violations. At HLS, she has worked on the International Law Journal and been an active member of HLS Advocates for Human Rights. She holds a B.A. from Bowdoin College in Government & Legal Studies and Russian. 

Congratulations to all of our summer fellows and best of luck to all the HLS students interning abroad this summer!