Myra Kraft Award

Daya Benami Narasimhan

Daya is a rising senior at Columbia College studying Human Rights with a concentration in Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies. With a mixed background of Indian, Israeli, Moroccan, and Kurdish Iraqi heritage, Daya is interested in studying and working on issues of conflict and migration. She is spending this summer interning at the International Rescue Committee in New York as an Adult Education Administrative Assistant. 

Alexandra Kirk

Alexandra Kirk will graduate from Columbia College in May 2023 with majors in Human Rights and History. In addition to her study of student activism and decolonization in the context of world history, Alexandra’s research in human rights focussed on immigration law, disability rights, and education. During the 2021-2022 academic year, Alexandra was a Research Fellow for the ISHR and helped to organize the Mobilities Conference, aimed at creating resources for asylum seekers with disabilities and their legal advocates. Alexandra’s capstone project in human rights built on her prior research to explore existing educational supports and persistent challenges for Syrian children with disabilities living in Jordan’s Za’atari Refugee Camp. 

Alexandra is deeply passionate about educational equity and worked closely with non-profit organizations Meet Me at the Museum, the Double Discovery Center, and Matriculate to promote access to the arts and higher education for low-income students across New York City. Prior to attending law school, Alexandra will work as a paralegal at the Appeals Division of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, where she hopes to continue learning about opportunities to strengthen human rights within the criminal justice system.

Victoria Mueller

Victoria Mueller (she/her) is a senior at Columbia University, majoring in Human Rights, concentrating in Sociology, and specializing in German. Her work focuses on how both international law and local community organizations can achieve increased respect for refugee, immigrant, and women’s rights. After graduation, she will work at a think tank in Geneva, Switzerland, conducting migration and human rights policy research. She plans to attend law school to become an immigration/human rights attorney.

Claire Marie Ellis

Claire Marie Ellis will graduate from Columbia College in May 2023 with a major in Human Rights, a specialization in Women’s and Gender Studies, and a concentration in English and Comparative Literature. Her academic research centers on asylum claims from gender-based violence survivors, which she has investigated through the work of NGOs in the United States, France, and Switzerland. As a bilingual descendant of Cuban refugees, Claire has volunteered at various New York–based nonprofits such as Sanctuary for Families, The Brave House of the Urban Justice Center, and National Advocates for Pregnant Women. Most recently, Claire clerked for a judge in the Civil Court of New York City and has since developed a passion for labor rights and consumer-debt fairness policy. With hopes to dismantle gender-based forms of socio-economic oppression as they particularly impact migrant and immigrant workers, Claire plans to engage in more human rights activism abroad in the near future and then pursue a JD back in the states.

Megan Lunny

Megan Lunny is a junior in Columbia College double-majoring in English and Human Rights, with a specialization in History. She is also a Saltzman Student Scholar for Peace. Her interest in the intersection of human rights and nuclear disarmament began with a summer research trip to Tahiti, Mangareva, and Paris as a Global Scholar, where her research centered on compensation for Polynesian victims of French nuclear testing. Her Myra Kraft Prize has supported her work as an intern for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation since the summer of 2022, including attending the United Nations Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference and United Nations General Assembly First Committee in fall 2022, working on disarmament-related interventions by H.E. Tito of Kiribati, and co-authoring international youth statements on disarmament.

Juls Marino

Juls Marino graduated from Columbia University in May 2022 with a degree in Human Rights and a specialization in Information Sciences. Their coursework focused on cultural rights and Third World approaches to international law. Their senior capstone, “Crypto-Colonialism: How Digital Currencies Reify Colonial Power and Threaten Human Rights in the Global South and Beyond”, provided a materialist analysis of the impact of proof-of-work mechanisms on Indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination. Currently, Juls is on the communications team at Inclusive Development International, an organization dedicated to corporate accountability in the face of harmful development projects and land grabs. In their free time, Juls organizes with Anakbayan—a group that fights for genuine democracy and national liberation in the Philippines from a socialist perspective.

Hikari Shumsky

Hikari Shumsky is originally from Tokyo, Japan and graduated from Columbia College in May 2022. She studied Human Rights with a specialization in East Asian Studies and completed a concentration at The Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race. During her time at Columbia, she specifically pursued studies in collective memory and historical consciousness in postwar Japan and throughout East Asia. Her senior thesis, "Emotion, Identity, & National Memory: The Problem with Japan's Historical Awareness Problem" applies a psychoaffective analysis to historical statements made in postwar Japan in order to better understand the role of emotion in Japanese historical discourse. Outside of the classroom, Hikari was a Clinic Coordinator for Students for Sanctuary, a student-run migrant-rights organization that works with asylum seekers in NYC to navigate the federal immigration system. Hikari currently resides in NYC and now works in international baseball as a Coordinator for National Team Operations at Major League Baseball. She is now enjoying travelling the world through baseball and settling into post-grad life in NYC. 

Grace Miner

Grace Miner graduated from Columbia University in 2021, where she majored in Human Rights and specialized in History. Her undergraduate thesis focused on the use of grassroots truth-seeking processes to ensure accountability for past human rights abuses, referencing the first truth commission addressing racial injustice in a U.S. city, The Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission, as a case study. During her time at Columbia, she worked as a program assistant with the African American Redress Network, a collaboration between Columbia’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights, and Howard University’s Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center. She also served as an intern with the Post Conflict-Research Center located in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Rhode Island General Assembly, and Congressman Jim Langevin’s Washington, D.C. Office. Grace recently completed her Master of Public Policy (MPP) degree at the University of Oxford and contributed to research on the international crime of aggression for the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law, and Armed Conflict. She currently sits on the Board of Directors of Plan International USA, an international nonprofit organization that advances children’s rights and equality for girls.

​Meghana Bharadwaj

Meghana Bharadwaj is a May 2020 graduate from Columbia University, holding a degree in Human Rights. Her coursework has focused on children's rights, criminal justice reform, and socioeconomic inequality more broadly. Her independent research as part of the thesis seminar focused on the tension between rehabilitation and due process rights in prosecutorial practice in New York's Family Courts. Off campus, she is the Founder and Executive Director of Just For Kidz, a youth-run national non-profit with the goal of serving marginalized children through service and advocacy, and she has worked with multiple children's rights organizations including the Children's Defense Fund, Avenues for Justice, and the National Juvenile Justice Network. Meghana hopes to become an advocate for legal reform on behalf of children, and as such, will be attending Harvard Law School in the Fall of 2022. In her free time, Meghana enjoys dancing hip-hop and Bhangra as part of Columbia's Bhangra team, playing flamenco guitar, and trying different restaurants and ice cream places around New York City.  

Rebecca Cai

Rebecca Cai graduated from Columbia College in 2020 with a double-major in Human Rights and Economics. In her coursework at Columbia and at the University of Oxford as an Oxbridge Scholar, Rebecca specialized in development economics and comparative politics.  Her independent undergraduate research focused on women’s economic rights in Sub-Saharan Africa. Rebecca is currently working as a research associate for Development Data Lab, analyzing data on economic development in India. She plans to pursue graduate study and further research on the intersection between economic development and gender. In her free time, Rebecca enjoyed art history, performing as a member of Columbia’s Raw Elementz dance group, and hiking as a COÖP leader.

Jalileh Garcia

Jalileh Garcia is originally from Siguatepeque, Honduras. Currently, she is a rising senior majoring in Human Rights with a specialization in Latin American Cultures. 

Jalileh has been involved in various student organizations on campus including Alianza, the Baha’i Club, Columbia University Students for Human Rights (CUSHR), and Latinx Heritage Month (LHM). She has also served as a Staff Writer for RightsViews. In the past, she has interned for Catholic Charities Immigration Legal Services in Boston and for the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL) in San José, Costa Rica. This summer, Jalileh will continue to intern for CEJIL, an organization that works on the defense and promotion of human rights in the Americas through the different mechanisms of the Inter-American Human Rights System. 

​Meghana Bharadwaj

Meghana Bharadwaj is a May 2020 graduate from Columbia University, holding a degree in Human Rights. Her coursework has focused on children's rights, criminal justice reform, and socioeconomic inequality more broadly. Her independent research as part of the thesis seminar focused on the tension between rehabilitation and due process rights in prosecutorial practice in New York's Family Courts. Off campus, she is the Founder and Executive Director of Just For Kidz, a youth-run national non-profit with the goal of serving marginalized children through service and advocacy, and she has worked with multiple children's rights organizations including the Children's Defense Fund, Avenues for Justice, and the National Juvenile Justice Network. Meghana hopes to become an advocate for legal reform on behalf of children, and as such, will be attending Harvard Law School in the Fall of 2022. In her free time, Meghana enjoys dancing hip-hop and Bhangra as part of Columbia's Bhangra team, playing flamenco guitar, and trying different restaurants and ice cream places around New York City. 

Justin Holiman

Justin Holiman graduated from Columbia University in May 2020 with a degree in Human Rights and specialization in Political Science. He focused his studies on the American political and judicial systems and how they affect children’s rights. His senior year research analyzed the history of landlord-tenant law, as well as the right to housing counsel as a remedy for the negative impacts residential eviction has on children’s rights. This research built on the many legal internships he held during his time at Columbia, including at Legal Outreach, Inc. and Children’s Rights, Inc. Justin intends to build upon his passion for improving children’s well-being through housing law reform during his studies at the University of Chicago Law School in the fall of 2020. Beyond academics, Justin loves tending bar, watching every Academy Award-nominated film each year, playing guitar, and watching baseball.

Tessa Silverman

Tessa graduated from Columbia University in 2019 with a degree in Human Rights, specializing in Latin American Studies. During her time at Columbia, her interest in law and justice reform led her to participate in Mock Trial and work for public defenders in Washington, D.C. and the Bronx, New York. She completed an undergraduate thesis on the racial and socioeconomic discrimination in the United States Family Court system, examining how international human rights norms might be deployed domestically to achieve a more equitable model for child welfare. Tessa also spent a semester studying in Argentina, where she researched strategies for combating the labor exploitation of Bolivian migrants. 

Since graduating, Tessa has worked in the office of U.S. Senator Ben Cardin as a speechwriter and as a legislative correspondent for foreign policy. She plans to attend law school and continue pursuing her passion for civil and human rights advocacy

Clara Beccaro

Clara was born and raised in Paris, France. She is currently a rising senior majoring in Women's and Gender Studies and Human Rights at Columbia University. Throughout their three years at Columbia, Clara has been involved in No Red Tape, Columbia's anti-sexual assault activist group. For the last two years, Clara has also served on the Queer and Trans Advisory Board and has participated in creating Columbia's first LGBTQ+ survey. This summer, Clara will work as a legal intern for BAAM (Reception and Support Office for Migrants), an organization that helps refugees seek asylum in France; she will particularly be working with LGTBQ+ refugees.

Brianne Felsher

Brianne Felsher graduated from Columbia College in 2018, and majored in Human Rights. She is now studying at the Jurisprudence and Social Policy PhD program at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests include: social movements, gender and sexuality studies, textile work and "women's work," and sociology of law. When not in class, she spends most of her time reading, practicing calligraphy, or doing embroidery.

Hannah Hollandbyrd

Hannah Hollandbyrd is a recent graduate of Columbia College, where she studied human rights and was a member of UndoCU, an organization for undocumented Columbia University students. She is from the border city of El Paso, Texas and is interested in drug policy, migration, and human rights on the US/Mexico border. She hopes to get a Master's Degree and work towards more humane drug and immigration policy in Mexico and the U.S. Currently, she is an events coordinator with the Beto for Texas Senate campaign.

As a recipient of the Kraft Prize, Hannah worked at Project PODER, a Mexico City-based organization that works on corporate accountability and human rights in Latin America. As an intern with Project PODER, she researched the renegotiation of NAFTA and assisted the transparency technology department.

Eliana Kanefield

Eliana Kanefield graduated from Columbia where she studied Hispanic Studies and Human Rights with a specialization in Ethnicity and Race Studies. While at Columbia, Eliana co-founded and edited Portales, an international undergraduate research journal with a focus on Latin American and Iberian cultures, co-developed a literacy and nutrition program through Community Impact Leadership Program, learned about corporate social responsibility and public service through the Kenneth Cole Community Action Program, and taught classes in local public schools on conflict-resolution and genocide.

She has pursued her interests in human rights, diplomacy, and policy implementation through internships with the Gender, Human Rights, and Culture branch of the UN Population Fund, Human Rights Foundation, Office of Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, Belfer Institute for Latino and Latin American Affairs, and Center for Democracy in the Americas. She is currently teaching in Argentina at Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, as well as in rural communities, as a Fulbright Scholar.

Ella Every-Wortman

Ella Every-Wortman graduated from Columbia University in 2016 where they majored in Human Rights with a focus on Critical Race and Ethnicity Studies and and minored in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.  While at Columbia, Ella pursued their interest in restorative justice with a two-year long independent research project entitled "'Not to Forget but to Live': Reimagining Justice and Sexual Violence at the University,"  a project which takes up transformative justice as an alternative to current punitive systems of justice.  Centering intersectional feminist anti-violence theory and an anti-carceral lens, this work brings together justice literature with original focus group and interview research to ask given the complex ideological, material, and systemic investments that inform the dynamics of sexual violence on college campuses, what would transformative justice at Columbia University look like and how can we use it to deconstruct the boundaries of privilege and marginalization that are mutually constituted through interpersonal and systemic violence.  Ella was a core organizer for Columbia Prison Divest, a successful student-led campaign to divest Columbia University's endowment from the private prison industry, and also served as a Peer Advocate for Sexual Violence Response (SVR).

Haley Zovickian

I am a 2017 graduate of Columbia College with double majors in Human Rights and Political Science. My research interests include legal solutions to sustained racial discrimination and inequality in the United States post-slavery, as well as accountability and historical memory regarding the Armenian Genocide. While in college I worked as a site coordinator for Columbia's Project for the Homeless, which staffed two midtown homeless shelters, and tutored GED preparation to juvenile and adult inmates at Rikers Island and the Metropolitan Correctional Center. I also interned at the New York Attorney General's Office and the US. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, where I am currently working as a paralegal. I received the Myra Kraft Prize for my internship at the San Francisco Superior Court, where I assisted a Brady-Pitchess commissioner in analyzing claims of police misconduct. This internship gave me valuable firsthand exposure to the legal system as well as helped me develop the skills to succeed in a "learn-by-doing" environment.

Brooke Burrows

As a double major in Human Rights and Psychology, Brooke has long been interested in how and why conflicts develop as well as how to identify sustainable interventions that can help break cycles of violence. During her undergraduate career at Columbia, Brooke served as a Lead Activist for the Columbia Democrats as well as a Policy Director for the Columbia University Students for Human Rights, advocating successfully for the group's official establishment. Her work at The Fortune Society as part of a Kenneth Cole Community Engagement Fellowship enabled her to examine critically the criminal justice system in the United States while an internship at Doctors Without Borders during the Ebola crisis gave her a inside perspective on the complexity of international humanitarian aid work. After studying abroad in Dharamsala, India, Brooke wrote her senior human rights seminar paper on how the Tibetan Exile community understands and employs human rights rhetoric in their political and social struggle. Following graduation, Brooke completed service as a Peace Corps Community and Youth Development Volunteer in Armenia before undertaking an AmeriCorps Project Conserve position in her hometown of Brevard, North Carolina. In fall of 2018, Brooke will enter UMass Amherst's Psychology of Peace and Violence Program in pursuit of a doctoral degree in Social Psychology.

Anna Jessurun

Anna Jessurun graduated magna cum laude from Columbia College in 2017 with a Bachelor of Arts in Human Rights and a concentration in Political Science. After graduating, Anna began her position as a Project Assistant with the Family Law Project at Sanctuary for Families, an organization that provides a range of services for survivors of domestic violence in New York City. As an undergraduate, Anna was a tour guide with the Undergraduate Recruitment Committee and interned with organizations such as the New York Civil Liberties Union, Hillary For America, and the Advocates for Human Rights. Her research interests include the intersection of reproductive rights and poverty and the impact of U.S. policy on sex trafficking on the international human rights arena. In April 2015, Anna was awarded the Myra Kraft prize and received funding for her summer internship with the New York City chapter of the National Organization for Women. As an Women's Rights intern with NOW-NYC, Anna aided the organization's mission to support women's rights legislation at the municipal and state level. One of her responsibilities included staffing the NOW-NYC Helpline and after analyzing the types of calls received and other data, Anna put together a report with suggestions to the NOW-NYC staff for improving its efficiency. Anna's summer with NOW-NYC cemented her desire to make a career out of women's rights advocacy, and she continues to volunteer with them today.

Grace Bickers

Grace Bickers graduated with honors from Columbia College in 2014, majoring in Human Rights with a concentration in Middle Eastern Studies. Her undergraduate thesis, an abridged version of which won the 2016 Ignacio Martín-Baró Human Rights Essay Competition at the Pozen Family Center for Human Rights (University of Chicago), analyzed the lack of accountability mechanisms within the economic, social, and cultural human rights regime, arguing that an over reliance on state-based checks on power and state-granted rights leaves people without meaningful modes of legally accessing universal rights. As her research focused in particular on the case of Tajikistan, she traveled there to live and teach after receiving her B.A. While at Columbia, Grace worked for two years as a research assistant with the Presbyterian Ministry at the United Nations.

After obtaining an M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Chicago, Grace is back at Columbia, where she is now a Ph.D. student in the Department of Religion studying medieval Islamic history.

Valerie Comenencia Ortiz

Valerie Comenencia Ortiz, originally from Caguas, Puerto Rico, graduated from Columbia College in 2014, majoring in Human Rights with a concentration in Sustainable Development. As part of the Five-Year Dual Degree Program, she completed a Master’s in International Affairs with a Concentration in Economic and Political Development and a specialization in Gender and Public Policy from the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) in 2015.

During her time at Columbia, Valerie led various human rights student groups, including Columbia University Students for Human Rights and the Human Rights Working Group. She also worked as a research assistant for Professor Elazar Barkan, focusing on truth commissions and reconciliation in Latin America.

Valerie subsequently earned a law degree from Yale Law School in 2018. She will begin her legal career at Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, a plaintiff-side firm in San Francisco.

Erica Bower

Erica Bower graduated magna cum laude from Columbia College Class of 2014, with dual majors in Human Rights and Sustainable Development. Her research interests lay at the intersection of these disciplines -- the human rights implications of climate change for people displaced on the frontlines. Building on field work conducted in the Nepali Himalayas while studying abroad during her Junior year, her Honors Thesis focused on the relationship between climate change impacts and human mobility patterns, and what legal and policy frameworks exist to protect the rights of these populations on the move.

Outside the classroom, she was a member of GreenBorough Sustainability Living Community, Consilience Journal of Sustainable Development, SEEJ (Students for Environmental and Economic Justice), Columbia University Photography Society, and a hiking leader with COOP (Columbia Outdoor Orientation Program).

Since graduation, she has continued work inspired by her undergraduate research interest in climate change and displacement, including research and policy roles for UN Agencies, NGOs and a government-led consultation process known as the Nansen Initiative. Most recently, she worked to advance policy, legal and practical solutions to protect the rights of people forced to flee their homes after disasters, as the Climate Change and Disaster Displacement Specialist at the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Geneva Headquarters. She also completed a Master of Science in Forced Migration Studies from Oxford University Department of International Development's Refugee Studies Centre.

The Myra Kraft Prize for Exceptional Practical Experience in Human Rights Advocacy was, in retrospect, the catalyst that has shaped her career trajectory ever since. Interning for the UNHCR in summer 2013 cemented her professional interests in addressing climate change impacts on displaced populations, helped her to build a network of actors in this field, and has indirectly led to every position she has held since. 

Carrie Montgomery

Carrie Montgomery graduated from Columbia College in 2013, with a double major in History and Human Rights. During her time at Columbia, she co-founded the Public Service Initiative which offered personal statement and scholarship essay workshops to local high school students. She was also a member of the Intercultural Resource Center and Multicultural Recruitment Committee. Carrie studied abroad at Columbia University Middle East Research Center/University of Aquaba in Amman, Jordan. She plans to pursue a career in law.