Maria Rohani

Maria Rohani is a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University's Institute for the Study of Human Rights (ISHR) for the 2026-2027 academic year.

Her project, 'Synthetic Protest, Authentic Unrest,' explores how the proliferation of AI-generated content is shaping the way uprisings and protests are documented, understood, and perceived. 

This project builds on over a decade of work as a practitioner at the intersection of human rights, technology, and social movements. Maria currently serves on the Case and Policy team at Meta's Oversight Board, where she works on freedom of expression and platform governance. She has previously held roles at Google, UN Women, CARE and UNFPA, and independently consults on technology and gender for philanthropic organizations.

Maria is a Junior Fellow at the Internet Law and Policy Foundry. She holds a Master of Arts in Human Rights Studies from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Peace and Conflict Studies from UC Berkeley. She is based in Brooklyn, NY.