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Past Student Coordinators and Researchers
Aisenstadt Student Researchers
Amanda Bowie-Edwards (Disability Initiative)
Amanda is a third year BCL/JD student at the McGill Faculty of Law. Originally from Thunder Bay, Ontario, she moved to Montreal during high school. Prior to studying law, she obtained a DEC from John Abbott College in Liberal Arts.
Outside of the classroom, Amanda serves as VP Clubs and Services on the Law Students’ Association. She also volunteers at the Legal Information Clinic and is an associate managing editor for the McGill Journal of Sustainable Development Law. This past summer, she interned at West Island Community Shares, where she worked on projects aimed at supporting local NGOs. This work led to an interest in community-based approaches to human rights issues. She is also interested in the intersection between human rights, environmental justice, and intergenerational equity.
Laura Cullell
Laura has received training in International Law, Human Rights Monitoring, UN Systems, Foreign Relations, and Humanitarian Field work. She has also received certificates of completion for courses related to the International Labour Organization, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and the International Committee of the Red Cross. During her time at UPEACE, she was responsible for running the Annual Model UN Conference where she coordinated with international universities, UN institutions, and Foreign Embassies in promoting Peace Through Diplomacy.
A Tica native, Laura immigrated to Canada with her mother and brother from Costa Rica. She has lived in France, Peru, Costa Rica and Canada and speaks three languages. She obtained her B.A. in French Studies from York University where she discovered her love of literature and puns. She has spent the last few years working as a legal professional in the private sector, and at the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General.
Laura has a great interest in transnational cybercrime, the ever-evolving digital landscape, and the use of the Dark web as a tool for propagating cybercriminal activity. She is currently completing a certificate as a Cybercrime Specialist from Humber College.
Throughout her career, Laura has gained a great appreciation for human rights in a global context and is very excited to intern at the Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism. She will be interning September to December 2017.
Quinter Faith
Quinter comes to the CHRLP as a MasterCard Foundation Scholar from Kenya. She is currently an undergraduate student at the McGill Faculty of Arts, in her third year of a double major in Economics and Political Science.
Quinter’s academic interests lie in the role of law in development and human rights. Before coming to the CHRLP, Quinter interned at the International Development Advisory Services department at KPMG Kenya, and was actively involved in organizing a competition that was aimed at encouraging start-ups and existing private companies to apply for funding to either set up or scale up their operations in rural sub-Saharan Africa, with the aim of providing affordable, innovative services to those who were initially unable to access them. Most recently, she has worked as a research assistant in a University of Oslo-led research project that aimed to demonstrate how little women (though they are the primary users of energy in Sub-Saharan Africa) are involved in the decision-making process in the energy sector, and are rarely involved in the management of the production process. It is hoped that the findings from that project will inspire legal frameworks that better integrate women in the decision-making process and management.
During her internship at the CHRLP, Quinter will be assisting with event planning, particularly with respect to the Centre’s aboriginal initiatives, as well as general logistical and administrative support. At the end of her internship with the CHRLP, Quinter will be going to China as part of the Li Ka Shing Exchange Award Program at Shantou University.
Emma Lodge (O'Brien Programs)
Emma is a BCL/JD candidate at McGill University’s Faculty of Law. She currently volunteers at the International Refugee Assistance Project, and is a caseworker at McGill's Legal Information Clinic.
Prior to starting her law studies, she completed Parliamentary Internship in Ottawa Aug 2018 – May 2019.
She obtained a BA in Political Science, Honours, from the University of British Columbia, where she focused on migration and geopolitics.
Nevada McEniry-Hatajlo (Disability Initiative)
Nevada is a final year BCL/JD student at McGill’s Faculty of Law. She grew up in Montreal and completed her bachelor’s degree in Communication Studies at Concordia University. She also completed a Women’s Studies certificate at the Simone de Beauvoir Institute at Concordia. While working at Concordia, she worked at the CSU’s Legal Information Clinic, as well as at the CSU’s Advocacy Centre. These experiences helped guide her to apply to law school.
Nevada has really appreciated the more practical experiences she’s had in law school. Over the summer of 2019, she began shadowing the director of Innocence McGill, and is now a co-director for the 2019-2020 school year. This experience has solidified her interest in criminal law, but it has also taught her countless other things. In addition, she’s was a previous volunteer at a local sex-workers organization called Stella, in which she participated in an ongoing legal research project in documenting sex-work cases throughout Canada. Throughout her studies, she was also getting to know McGill better by working at McGill’s Office for Students with Disabilities.
Chiara Montalbano
Chiara Montalbano holds a law degree from Trento Faculty of Law with thesis “ Relationship between legal pluralism and human rights”. During her studies, she studied International law, in particular International human rights law. Moreover, she spent one year at the Faculté de droit de Lorraine to deepen her knowledge of French Law and contrast it with Italian law.
During her stay at McGill’s Faculty of Law, she did a research thesis under the supervision of Prof. Kirsten Anker. She keeps in touch with the Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism. She is also an Elsa member and UNICEF Volunteer.
Kimia Towfigh (Events and Seminars)
She recently served as Editor-in-Chief of the McGill Journal of Sustainable Development Law and worked at the Refugee Centre in Montreal as a legal intern.
Her research interests include sustainable development, immigration law, and taxation.
Zoë Christmas (Rathlyn & the Law Program Coordinator 2019-2020)
Zoë Christmas is a law student at McGill University. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy degree from McMaster University, where she worked as a research assistant at the Bertrand Russell Research Centre.
She interned at the McGill Institute for Health and Social Policy in early 2019 for the Bill C-81project on Canadian disability legislation, under the supervision of Professor Jonas-Sébastien Beaudry. She now works for Professor Beaudry as a research assistant.
She has also volunteered for the Legal Information Clinic at McGill, the Radical Law Students Association, and Open Door Books, a books-to-prisoners organization.
Leila Alfaro (Rathlyn & the Law Program Coordinator 2019-2020)
Originally from Honduras, Leila grew up in the South Shore (Montreal). She holds a BA in French Language and Literature with Honours in Translation and a Minor in German from McGill University.
In the recent years, she has expressed her focus in advocacy for diversity, inclusivity and accessibility mainly through her work as a research assistant, language tutor, translator and bilingual editor for the literary magazine Post-. Last summer, she was a McGill BLUE Fellow and worked on an interdisciplinary project on censorship, literature, translation theory and machine translation.
She was a McGill Law Human Rights Intern and learned about legal perspectives on Disability and Human Rights at the National University of Mar del Plata in Argentina. She subsequently joined the Centre for Human Rights & Legal Pluralism as the Rathlyn Disability & the Law co-coordinator for 2019-2020.
Samanta García Fialdini (Rathlyn & the Law Program Coordinator 2018-2019)
Samanta is a second-year law student at the McGill Faculty of Law. She holds a Master of Arts in Latin American Studies from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, where she focused on Migration and Development.
Before joining the Faculty of Law, Samanta worked for over seven years towards programs and policies that respect the rights of refugees and other vulnerable migrants in Canada and around the world, including through policy reform and awareness-raising. For most of that time, she particularly specialized on measures to improve access to services and strengthen the legislative protection of trafficked persons and migrants in situations of exploitation across Canada.
Mélisande Charbonneau-Gravel (Rathlyn & the Law Program Coordinator 2017-2018)
Mélisande C. Gravel est étudiante en troisième année à la faculté de droit de McGill. Très engagée dans les communautés locales, elle s’intéresse particulièrement aux enjeux concernant les personnes en situation de handicap.
Elle a travaillé à la Ressource pour personnes handicapées en Abitibi-Témiscamingue et le nord du Québec, un organisme aidant les personnes en situation de handicap qui sont également en situation précaire.
Au cours des deux dernières années, elle a aussi été membre active du Disability and the Law portfolio du Human Rights Working Group de la Faculté.
Meghan Pearson (Rathlyn & the Law Program Coordinator 2017-2018)
Meghan is a second year law student at McGill University. She previously completed a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from Concordia University. She has focused much of her community-engagement work on facilitating accessto crucialservices. She is a research assistant for Voices-Voix, and has worked for both AIDS Community Care Montreal and the Legal Information Clinic at McGill.
Simone Cavanaugh (Rathlyn & the Law Program Coordinator 2016-2017)
Simone is a fourth year law student completing a major in International Human Rights and Development at McGill University as a Loran Scholar. She has recently completed a human rights internship at the Disability Federation of Ireland and the Center for Disability Law and Policy at the National University of Ireland in Galway. Simone is also Equity Commissionner for the Student’s Society of McGill University and a Coordinator of Women in House McGill, a program that seeks to encourage female participation in Canadian politics.
Simone has been a disability rights advocate since a very young age. She is a Childhood Arthritis spokesperson for the Arthritis Society, was the coordinator of the Kids on the Move Camp for children with rheumatological diseases and Viomax, a weekend activities program for children with special needs. Simone is also the founding director of Pivot International, a non-profit organization that provides adapted equipment and access to medical services for children with disabilities in Nicaragua with the goal of helping them achieve their full potential. Simone is eager to forge collaborations and plan an innovative and exciting year for the Disability and Human Rights Initiative.
Alizeh Ladak (Rathlyn & the Law Program Coordinator 2015-2016)
My passion lies at the intersection of women’s rights and disability rights. I have a Bachelors degree in International Development and Globalization from the University of Ottawa and am currently a 2nd year law student at McGill. My interest in disability rights began when I volunteered with the special needs class in my high school. I then proceeded to teach a weekly yoga class to adults with mental and physical disabilities. I have also worked at the Lyndhurst Centre for spinal cord injury in Toronto. All of these experiences brought me great joy and taught me how to communicate in unconventional ways.
These experiences also demonstrated to me the inequalities and particular challenges faced by this population. I was happy to be participating in the Aisenstadt/Disability series last year! In my free time I enjoy playing sports (especially hockey), going to concerts and travelling. After law school, I plan on pursuing a career in international human rights law. I was an Aisenstadt Fellow at the Centre before becoming a Rathlyn Fellow for 2015-2016.
Iñaki Navarrete (Rathlyn & the Law Program Coordinator 2015-2016)
Iñaki is a fourth year law student at McGill University whose interests lie in human rights advocacy, disability rights and litigation. Before law school, he studied at Collège Stanislas, which he successfully represented in various philosophy and debate competitions. At the Faculty of Law, he currently serves as Senior Editor with the McGill Journal of Law and Health and as Teaching Assistant in Advanced Civil Law Obligations. In pursuing his passion for oral advocacy, he recently represented McGill at the Charles-Rousseau International Law Moot Competition, where his team’s factum was ranked third overall.
His interest in disability rights began with his internship at Disability Rights International (DRI) in Mexico. He drafted and submitted the merits in the "Federico Mora" case on behalf of people with disabilities detained in Guatemala’s Federico Mora psychiatric institution. Iñaki filed this case with DRI in Washington, before the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights. He hopes that this case will set a new precedent in challenging the segregation faced by people with disabilities in Latin America. As such, he looks forward to the opportunity of working on the Disability Seminar Series as a way to promote disability rights through education. Iñaki was an Aisenstadt research fellow before becoming a 2015-2016 Rathlyn Fellow.
Steve Payette (Rathlyn & the Law Program Coordinator 2014-2015 and 2015-2016)
Steve is a BCL/LLB 2016 candidate. He has a MA in Communication from the University of Ottawa and also holds a BA in Communication & Cultural Studies from Concordia University.
His research interests concern conceptualizing Law as a communicative process; semiotic translation; and the (missing) embodiment of normative thinking. He endeavors to become a Quebec Notary and has interned with the Center for Law and Aging.
Izabella Karapetyan (Rathlyn & the Law Program Coordinator 2014-2015)
Izabella is a BCL/LLB 2016 candidate. Originally from Armenia Izabella holds a B.C.L., Licence en droit and LLM from French University in Armenia in collaboration with Universite Jean-Moulin Lyon 3. She also has a Masters in critical disability studies from York University in Toronto.
She has extensive international and Canadian experience in employment and human rights. Izabella also has published brochures on employment and education for people with disabilities, and worked as a consultant for World Vision USA and World Vision Canada.
Margery Pazdor (Rathlyn & the Law Program Coordinator 2014-2015)
Margery is a third year BCL/LLB student at McGill. Before starting law school, she spent two years working on a class action law suit representing former residents of an institution for people with disabilities.
She holds a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry and a Bachelor of Arts in French at Memorial University of Newfoundland, along with a Master of Arts in European Studies from the University of British Columbia.
Nicholas Caivano (Rathlyn & the Law Program Coordinator 2013-2014)
Nicholas Caivano holds a BCL/LLB from the Faculty of Law at McGill and a BCom from the Faculty of Management. He researches in the areas of international law and human rights.
He has served as a law clerk at the Quebec Superior Court and as an editor for the McGill Law Journal.
Nicholas has worked for a major Canadian law firm and an international non-profit in New York, and has assisted leading counsel before the Supreme Court of Canada.
He is an associate with the Rule of Law and Economic Development Research Group (ROLED) and has also held an Aisenstadt Fellowship at the Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism.
Aisenstadt Student Researchers
Thanks to a generous gift from the Nussia & André Aisenstadt Foundation, the CHRLP was able to support Aisenstadt Student Research Fellows from 2011 to 2013.
Aisenstadt Fellows provided assistance to the CHRLP to further its mandate as a centre for research and action on human rights and legal pluralism.
Fellows were involved in current Centre projects such as the compilation and editing of publications, the development of clinical legal education programs, on-going research projects, and the planning of seminar series and conferences.
Stephanie Chow (Aisenstadt Student Researcher)
Stephanie Chow is an LL.M. candidate inside the Institute of Comparative Law at McGill University. She has an LL.B. (honours) and a B.A. in international politics from the University of Melbourne, Australia. After completing her law degree, she spent four and a half years with Transparency International undertaking research on anti-corruption and good governance in the Asia Pacific region. From 2011 to 2014, she was based with Transparency International in Vietnam. Stephanie has also worked on a wide range of issues in human rights law. She previously worked as legal case worker for asylum seekers applying for refugee protection in Australia and has worked for Oxfam Australia and Amnesty International. She is also co-founder of Madame Tây, which works with tailors and entrepreneurs in Senegal and Vietnam to address human rights issues in the garment industry. Madame Tây provides a platform for people to trace their garment’s origins back to the individual tailor and learn about the story of its production.
Stephanie’s research interests include the intersection between law, economic development and the reconciliation of traditions. Her LL.M thesis undertakes a comparative study between the adoption of rule of law in China and Vietnam against the broader backdrop of the rule of law paradigm in international development.
Valentine Fau (Aisenstadt Student Researcher)
Valentine has been a Ph. D. candidate in Law at the Université de Montreal since 2014. Prior to joining this doctoral program, Valentine studied at the Université de Toulouse (Bachelor in Law), specialized in International, European and Comparative Law. Then, she integrated the Institute of International Humanitarian Law in Aix-en-Provence, where she graduated with a Master's degree in “Protection of individuals and Human Security” (Protection des personnes et sécurité humaine). She realized a research work about « the difficult balance between need for protection and need for freedom in the approach of the international children rights”. She has also obtained a superior degree on international legal studies for human rights (diplôme d’études supérieures D’Université de Juriste internationaliste de Terrain pour les Droits de l’Homme appliqués).
She is interested in Human Rights, Humanitarian law, as well as the relationship and interaction between the law and the social sciences. In addition to her studies, Valentine enhanced her knowledge of Children Rights by realizing internships. One of them was in Geneva for Humanium, an NGO specialized in the promotion and respect of Children Rights. She also worked in Madagascar in the area of the public health.
Her research project focuses on the question of the adaptability of the law to the social and human realities in the case of children issues, and according to an interdisciplinary approach. She is being supervised by Professor Violaine Lemay, within the Centre de Recherche en Droit Public.
Chloé Normand (Aisenstadt Student Researcher)
In my university studies, I started a bachelor’s degree in elementary school teaching (2009-2011) for which I also worked as a substitute teacher in a school on the south shore of Montreal. I then changed field and started a bachelor’s degree in International Relations and International Law, which I finished in 2014 with a term in Urugay. I am now doing a Law degree at the University of Montreal.
During my studies, I accomplished a few projects. I was a part of the CIDDHU which is the International Clinic for Human rights defence at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQÀM) for which I was paired with a lawyer and another student. During the semester, we worked in partnership with an organism in Mexico that was fighting for migrant rights who travelled from Central America to the United States, through Mexico. We worked on a complaint to the Inter American Human Rights Commission from a few families whose family members rights were violated in Mexico during their journey crossing that country to reach the United States.
When I started my bachelor’s degree in Law at the University of Montréal, I got involved in the Pro Bono Student’s Canada program for which I got assigned a project in the LGBT community. I also did a small research project for CARL (Canadian Association for Refugee Lawyers) in immigration law and criminal law.
Raphael Vagliano (Aisenstadt Student Researcher)
Raphael just finished his 3L year in the B.C.L./LL.B. Program at McGill University. He also holds a BA in Political Science from Columbia University. Prior to beginning law studies, spent a year as a CASA fellow at the American University in Cairo. Before then, he lived in Syria, where he worked as a journalist and teacher, in addition to interning at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Since beginning law school, he has continued to be involved in immigration and refugee law issues through founding McGill’s first chapter of the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project and completing a clinical placement at the Just Solutions Clinic. He has also gained experience in international human rights and humanitarian law through interning at Human Rights Watch, participating at the Clinique internationale de défense des droits humains de l’UQAM, and working as a legal attaché at the delegation to the UN of the International Committee of the Red Cross. His current research interests lie primarily in international human rights law, international humanitarian law, and international criminal law.
Isabelle Bourgeois (Aisenstadt Student Researcher)
Isabelle Bourgeois is currently a Master student in International Law at Université de Montréal. She was also granted a scholarship to study at the University of Geneva to attend seminars on international and cultural heritage law. She participated to the CEDAW for Change Institute organized by the Centre for Women’s Studies in Education, University of Toronto.
Isabelle worked on issues related to women’s rights and cultural diversity in numerous institutes worldwide including the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice of New York University School of Law, the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative in Delhi, etc. She was involved as a researcher and a volunteer within different organizations advocating and promoting human rights such as Equitas and International Clinic for the Defense of Human Rights. Because of this, Isabelle was granted many awards and scholarships including Student Excellence Award of the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute, the Undergraduates AVENIR Personality Award and the Students for Development Scholarship.
Her research interests are legal pluralism, anthropology and women’s rights. Her thesis project studies more specifically the intersections between the Convention for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women, the Indian 2005 Protection of Women Against Domestic Violence Act and the Indian cultural and social norms regulating the responses to acts of domestic violence.
Azinatya Caron-Paquin (Aisenstadt Student Researcher)
Azinatya Caron-Paquin is an LLM candidate at the Faculty of Law of University of Montreal. She is specializing in international law, mostly focusing on human rights issues.
In 2012, she graduated from the University of Quebec in Montreal with a bi-disciplinary degree in International relations and international law. While she was pursuing her Bachelor degree, she got involved in UQAM’s International Clinic for the Defense of Human Rights.
Her research interests converge on children rights, immigration matters, civil liberties, Azinatya is currently working on a thesis concerning Canadian juvenile justice through an international law lens.
Cécile Capela (Aisenstadt Student Researcher)
Cécile is a BCL/LLB candidate from Reunion Island, France. She holds a Bachelor of Political Science (Hons) & Philosophy with a focus on political theory from McGill, and has also studied at the University of Western Australia.
In her last year of undergraduate studies, she was a fellow student of McGill’s Research Group on Constitutional Studies (RGCS), and in her first year of law school, she was the research assistant of Prof. Vincent Forray. In this position, she engaged in a dialogue between law and philosophy, reflecting on the questions of responsibility, uncertainty and risk. Cécile is committed to an interdisciplinary and critical approach in legal and human right research -- drawing from Architecture, Literature, Philosophy, Psychology and other disciplines.
Besides, Cécile is dedicated to advancing social justice. Last year, she worked pro bono to defend access to legal aid, and volunteered at various legal clinics. This summer & fall, she is interning at the Mile End Legal Clinic.
Miatta Gorvie (Aisenstadt Student Researcher)
Miatta, BCL/LLB'14, studied international development at the University of Ottawa before coming to McGill Law.
She has worked on human rights issues in a number of institutional settings, including placements with the federal ministries of immigration and aboriginal affairs, a class action litigation firm, and legal clinics serving poor people with disabilities in Kampala and the low-income, immigrant communities in the Parc-Extension neighbourhood of Montreal.
Miatta is interested in interdisciplinary understandings of human rights in East and West Africa, especially the intersections of law, anthropology, and political economy. She enriched her studies in international human rights during her final semester away at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the fall of 2013.
Stéphanie Hachez (Aisenstadt Student Researcher)
Stéphanie Hachez graduated from the University of Montreal in 2012 with a degree in law.
Her interests are public international law and immigration law. She has been published in International Legal Perspectives.
Stéphanie also holds an International Baccalaureate degree in Natural Sciences from André-Laurendeau College.
Audrey Mocle (Aisenstadt Student Researcher)
Audrey Mocle is a LLB/BCL candidate from Toronto, Ontario. She holds a Bachelor of Commerce with a focus in the Social Context of Business from the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill and a Master's in Human Rights from the London School of Economics.
Audrey is also a Senior Editor for the McGill Journal of Sustainable Development Law and Policy.
Her research interests include the impact of corporations on human rights and environmental protection.
Benjamin Prud'homme (Aisenstadt Student Researcher)
Benjamin Prud'homme is a Master's student at the Faculty of Law at Université de Montréal, from which he obtained his LL.B. in 2011. He also received a scholarship to study at Oxford university, where he attended international law seminars.
Benjamin co-founded and co-presides Projet Rafiki, a non-profit organization working in Tanzania which focuses on critical approaches to international cooperation. He was the recipient of a Forces Avenir award in 2011 and was selected to be a part of the International francophone finals of the Jean Pictet Competition in international humanitarian law.
His current work focuses on interdisciplinarity, legal pluralism, epistemology and pedagogy in Law faculties. Benjamin's published work ranges from many subjects including human rights and pluralism, honour killings, law and pedagogy, interdisciplinarity and international cooperation.
Rouba Al-Salem (Aisenstadt Student Researcher)
Rouba Al-Salem is a PhD student at the Faculty of Law, University of Montreal. She has an undergraduate degree in International Relations (American University in Cairo), and holds a Master of Arts in Middle East Politics (Exeter University ), along with a Master of Law in Public International Law (London School of Economics and Political Science).
Her professional experience is focused in the area of human rights legal research, advocacy, and training. In the past, she was involved in various local and international non governmental organizations working either in, or on the Middle East, (such as Al-Haq, the Ford Foundation, and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights).
Her Phd thesis relates to the Israeli High Court of Justice and the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories.
Myriam Dumont Robillard (Aisenstadt Student Researcher)
After obtaining a bachelor degree in International Studies (Distinction, 2004) and her LLB (Distinction, 2009), Myriam Dumont Robillard is now pursuing a LLM at University of Montreal. She is also a member of the Quebec Bar since 2010.
Myriam's involvement in community work with caregivers in Montreal lead her to research on the regulation of domestic workers in both Canadian and International perspectives. As an Aisenstadt Fellow, she currently works at the Centre on the Equality and Community Initiative, a new project seeking to develop a framework to address systemic inequalities faced by community-based organisations in our society.
Besides the relation between community work and the law, Myriam's other areas of research and interest include labour law and the ILO, feminist legal theory, international humanitarian law as well as migration and refugee law.
Sara Ross (Aisenstadt Student Researcher)
Sara Ross completed her BCL/LLB program with a major concentration in Commercial Negotiation and Dispute Resolution at McGill University. She served as Editor-in-Chief for Volume 56 of the McGill Law Journal and Book Review Editor for the McGill International Journal of Sustainable Development Law and Policy. Her two prior degrees are a BA in French and Spanish language, literature, and culture from the University of Alberta, and an Honour's BA in anthropology and archaeology from McGill University.
Following graduation Sara started clerking for the Federal Court of Canada under Justice Luc Martineau. Her current areas of research interest include Latin America, cultural heritage issues, and the use of alternative dispute resolution to resolve intercultural conflicts.
Ashli Au (Disability Initiative)
Ashli Au (she/her/elle) is a BCL/JD candidate at McGill’s Faculty of Law. She holds a BA in Legal Studies and Human Rights from Carleton University. She is interested in the intersection of law with marginalized groups with a particular focus on gender and sexual minorities. At the Faculty, she has volunteered with the McGill Law Journal’s 1L podcast team and LawNeedsFeminismBecause. She has also worked with EGALE, McGill’s Subcommittee on Queer People, and Dignity Network amongst other groups.
Casey Broughton (Disability Initiative)
Casey Broughton (she/her/elle) is a second year student in the BCL/JD program at McGill’s Faculty of Law. She previously completed a BSc. in Mathematics with a Minor in Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice at UBC Vancouver. She has a strong interest in human rights and social justice, most especially intersections of neurodivergent and queer experiences as well as the rights of workers and the equity implications of urban planning and access to public transport. At McGill, Casey has written for Professor David Howes’s Law and the Senses project and volunteered with the McGill Labour & Employment Law Club.
Justin Jalea (Scholars at Risk; Communications)
Justin is a BCL/JD candidate at McGill University’s Faculty of Law. Justin holds a master’s degree from the Institute for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University, and an MA and BA (Hons.) from the Universities of Alberta and Toronto, respectively, both in philosophy. Justin is an internationally recognized consultant for projects that seek to achieve positive social change through music. In his dual role of musician/activist, Justin has collaborated with organizations such as Americans for the Arts, the National Guild for Community Arts Education, the Young People’s Chorus of New York City, and the United Nations Orchestra and Singers. He has founded numerous vocal ensembles that foster compassion and action for diverse social causes, including the New York City-based activist ensemble Inspire: A Choir for Unity, whose community building-work is featured in his forthcoming book chapter in the Routledge Handbook of Human Rights and Music.
Justin is an adjunct professor of Human Rights and Philosophy in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies at Durham College in Ontario. Previously, he taught freedom of religion, economic inequality, and social movement theory at Mount Royal University in Calgary. Justin is JUNO-nominated tenor, appearing frequently with professional choirs such as the Canadian Chamber Choir, and the choir of the Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul in Montreal.
Riley Klassen-Molyneaux (International Human Rights Internship Program)
Riley Klassen-Molyneaux graduated in May 2022 with his BCL/JD from the McGill Faculty of Law. Prior to coming to law school, he earned three degrees with the University of Calgary: a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy, a Bachelor of Arts in French, and a Master of Arts in French literature. In that time, he was fortunate enough to study in France and Quebec City. In the first summer of law school, he was a human rights intern in Colorado and has been reading and writing in the field ever since. Among other things, he is interested in law, philosophy, economics, and psychology. He will be clerking at the Court of Appeal of Quebec in June 2022.
Jiasi Liu (O'Brien Programs and International Clerkships)
Jiasi is a BCL/JD candidate at McGill University’s Faculty of Law. Spurred by an interest in development, Jiasi interned at the Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve in Yunnan, China, an experience which piqued her curiosity in environmental policy. Since then, she has worked as an ESG Analyst and has held research assistant roles in the Departments of Art History and Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at UC Berkeley.
Jiasi holds a BSc in Environmental Economics and BA in Political Philosophy from the UC Berkeley-Sciences Po Paris Dual Degree Program. At the Faculty, Jiasi is a Junior Editor for the McGill Law Journal and Co-President of the McGill Art Law Association. She is interested in third-generation human rights in the context of just transitions, and the role of scientific knowledge within environmental law.
Elise Mallette (Disability Initiative)
Elise Mallette is a third-year student at the McGill Faculty of Law and an Associate Editor of the McGill Journal of Sustainable Development Law. In 2014, she obtained her Bachelor of Arts in International Studies and French with a thematic concentration in Socio-Cultural Identity from the University of Mississippi.
Elise is interested in international relations, environmental law, and sustainable development.
Shona Moreau (Douglas & Roy Events & Internship Program)
Shona is a B.C.L./J.D. candidate at McGill University’s Faculty of Law with an interest in family and human rights law. She is currently managing editor of the McGill Law Journal and works for the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel Office in the House of Commons of Canada. Prior to starting her law studies, she notably had the privilege to work at the House of Commons, Microsoft Canada, the Senate of Canada, Justice Canada, and the Canadian Permanent Mission in Geneva.
Kayla Maria Rolland (O'Brien Programs & Internship Program)
Kayla Maria Rolland is a 4L student and program coordinator for the O’Brien Graduate Fellowships and the International Human Rights Internship Program (IHRIP).
An alumnus of IHRIP herself, Kayla interned with the Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism in summer 2020 after the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted her initial internship plans. She has been involved with a variety of clubs and activities during her time at McGill. Off campus, she is the chair of the National Law Students Section of the Canadian Bar Association, and has led committees related to student debt and mental health with students and young lawyers from across Canada.
Ellen Spannagel (Disability Initiative)
Ellen is a second year BCL/JD student at McGill’s Faculty of Law. She holds a Bachelor of Journalism and Humanities from Carleton University.
She is passionate about work that is disability-inclusive and centers gender, sexual, and romantic minorities. She is also passionate about storytelling, and the ways in which knowledge is built, translated, and shared across regions and communities.
Angela Yang
Angela is a second year BCL/JD student at McGill’s Faculty of Law. Born in Montreal but raised in Hong Kong, she moved to the United States to pursue a BA at Brown University, where she created her own major in the field of critical humanitarianism. While at Brown, she also spent a semester on exchange in Nepal, Jordan, and Chile studying comparative human rights. Prior to law school, she worked for various organizations engaging with migrants’ rights, anti-human trafficking policies, as well as racial and climate justice in the media.
At the Faculty, Angela is a Senior Editor for the McGill Journal of Sustainable Development Law, an active member of the McGill International Law Society, and a research assistant in equality and discrimination law. She also volunteers with Pro Bono Students Canada at PINAY, where she conducts research on labour laws relating to caregivers.
Angela is interested in issues of justice and injustice that ignore or transgress borders, and in interrogating the shapes of those borders.
Raina Young (Communications)
Raina is a BCL/JD candidate at McGill University’s Faculty of Law. Prior to coming to McGill, Raina completed a Bachelor’s degree in Conflict Studies and Human Rights at the University of Ottawa. Raina has previously worked for the public service at Global Affairs Canada and the Privy Council Office. She has also worked as a Migration Policy Assistant at the Mission of Canada to the European Union in Brussels, and completed a student fellowship at The Refugee Hub in Ottawa.
Outside of her studies and work, Raina serves as the Director of Engagement for the non-profit Ally Squared. She also volunteers with the events committee of the Indigenous Law Association at the Faculty of Law.
