Executive Board (2021-22)
Co-Presidents
Sondra Anton
Sondra is originally from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and is currently a 3L at HLS. While an undergrad at Washington University in St. Louis, she spent several months in South America researching the role of Chilean torture survivors and local activists in initiating human rights prosecutions. Sondra later earned her Master’s degree in Politics at the University of Oxford, with her graduate dissertation focusing on the geopolitics of global justice at the International Criminal Court. During her time at Harvard, Sondra has continued to study issues surrounding justice and accountability in post-conflict societies as a student attorney in the International Human Rights Clinic. After graduation, she hopes to use her law degree to represent victims and survivors of mass atrocity in national courts or international tribunals. Sondra is also very passionate about grassroots social justice movements and the fight for racial justice in the US, and re-started the Activism wing of Advocates as Co-Director of Activism from 2020-21. While in this role, she led a university-wide campaign with Uyghur advocate and human rights lawyer Rayhan Asat that was featured in The Guardian and other international media outlets. Outside of school, Sondra loves to hike and once spent a month walking 500 miles across Spain on the Camino De Santiago!
Email: santon@jd22.law.harvard.edu
Anoush Baghdassarian
Anoush, a native New Yorker, is a 3L at HLS. Anoush is the co-founder of the Rerooted Archive, which documents more than 200 testimonies from Syrian-Armenians who have fled the conflict in Syria, contributing the testimonies to UN documentation and related case-building efforts, as well as preserving the history and culture of this ethnic and religious minority community. Between college and law school, Anoush completed a Master’s in Human Rights Studies at Columbia University and worked as an advisor to the Armenian Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York covering human rights and legal issues. Throughout law school she plans to further develop her career path in international criminal law and transitional justice working on cases of war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity. Outside of class, Anoush loves theatre and has written two historical fiction plays that have been published and produced!
Email: abaghdassarian@jd22.law.harvard.edu
Vice-President & Treasurer
Amre Metwally
Amre is a 3L interested in the intersection of technology and human rights. Prior to law school, he worked and lived in Turkey on a Fulbright Scholarship, helped run an international human rights and education non-profit, and worked at YouTube as the Policy Manager for political extremism and graphic violence issues on the platform. In this role, Amre also led efforts to advocate for product and policy changes to better protect content uploaded by human rights actors from erroneous takedowns. At HLS Amre is involved with the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, the Harvard Human Rights Journal, the Journal of Law and Technology, and the Middle Eastern Law Students Association. Outside of school, Amre spends much of his free time defending the glory that is Egyptian food to his fellow Arabs.
Project Coordinator
Allison Beeman
Allison is a third-year J.D. student at Harvard Law School. She graduated from Bowdoin College with a B.A. in Government and Legal Studies and the Fletcher School at Tufts University with an M.A. in Law and Diplomacy. Prior to law school, she lived in Jordan, where she worked for a start-up e-commerce bookstore, a Middle East news agency, a humanitarian research consultancy, and a refugee resettlement legal aid organization. This summer, she worked on war crimes investigations as an intern with the Commission for International Justice and Accountability and on consumer protection with the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General. At HLS, Allison is also a Co-President of the Law and International Development Society and works on the Harvard Human Rights Journal and the Harvard International Law Journal.
Programming Director
Cindy Wu
Cindy is a 3L from Guelph, Ontario, a small town close to Toronto, Canada. She graduated from the University of Toronto in 2019 with a degree in International Relations and Peace, Conflict & Justice. She currently serves as a managing editor for the Harvard Human Rights Journal. Cindy’s legal interests include corporate accountability, mass incarceration, and environmental justice. When she’s not in Zoom classes, Cindy enjoys music, baking, and reading (fiction, not casebooks).
Communications Director
Madeleine Cavanagh
Madeleine is originally from Toronto, Canada and is a 2L at HLS. After graduating from Vassar College with a degree in Political Science, Madeleine worked as an educational consultant in Beijing, China, where she helped students in grades 9-11 develop their extracurricular activities and interests in preparation for international college and university admissions. Madeleine is spending her 1L summer in Yerevan, Armenia, where she is interviewing victims of war crimes from the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh War. At HLS, Madeleine is also involved in the Harvard Human Rights Journal and the Harvard International Law Journal. She will be serving as a student attorney with the International Human Rights Clinic this spring. Outside of school, Madeleine loves running, baking, and crosswords!
Co-Directors of Activism
Karim Zein
Karim is an LL.M Candidate at Harvard Law School. Karim graduated valedictorian from both the LL.B in Lebanese and French laws at Université Saint-Joseph of Beirut (Lebanon), and the Master’s degree in International Business Law at Université Paris II Panthéon-Assas (France). Before joining HLS, he worked as a teaching fellow at Université Paris II Panthéon-Assas (France) and Sorbonne-Assas International Law School (United Arab Emirates), where he taught family and personal law courses (including seminars pertaining to legal issues faced by the members of the LGBTQ+ community in Europe and the MENA region). Karim was also part of the legal clinic of SOS Homophobie in France and of the legal clinic for refugees in Beirut.
Katelyn Turner
Katelyn is originally from La Plata, Maryland, and is a 1L at HLS. In 2018, she graduated summa cum laude from the University of Maryland, College Park, where she earned dual degrees in Government/Politics and Philosophy, and also minored in music performance. While an undergraduate student, she researched discriminatory attitudes among mental health professionals, highlighting client bias against Black Americans within the psychotherapist community. In 2019, she earned an MSc in Evidence-Based Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation from the University of Oxford. For her thesis, she conducted a qualitative meta synthesis exploring African-American women’s perceptions of the patient-provider relationship while navigating the U.S. healthcare system. Katelyn also served as a 2020-2021 U.S. Fulbright Research Fellow in Mauritius, where she conducted qualitative research on domestic violence. In addition to her interest in exploring the intersections of policy, race, gender, and health, Katelyn has extensive experience as an activist in student spaces and Black Lives Matter. In this role, she hopes to increase HLS’s connections with non-profit organizations and community organizers, and to promote a more proactive approach to activism.
Co-Directors of Community Development and Trainings
Arabi Hassan
Arabi Hassan is a 2L based in Los Angeles, CA and an immigrant from Bangladesh. She studied Sociology at UC Berkeley, where she also worked as an OSINT researcher at the Human Rights Center at Berkeley Law. After graduating, she founded First Gen Empower, a non-profit that helps first-generation, low-income, and undocumented students prepare for college and professional opportunities. She continues to serve as Co-Director and loves working with students. She spent her 1L summer at the ACLU SoCal, where she worked on litigation and policy issues involving detained immigrants in deportation proceedings. She is the Co-President of First Class and involved with the Harvard Human Rights Journal and the Journal of Law and Technology. In her free time, she enjoys watching bad reality TV, trying to find the best vegan wings in town, and scrolling through room decor Pinterest boards.
Rose Whitlock
Rose is a 3L from Richmond, Virginia. Prior to law school, she studied literature and gender studies at Wellesley and taught English in Milan. Outside of classes, she loves cooking, dancing, and continuing her quest to find the best pizza napoletana in the Greater Boston area.
Project Leaders
Dasha Kolyaskina
Dasha is a 1L originally from Kazan, Russia but raised in Lexington, Kentucky. She studied economics and political science prior to law school and is interested in corporate accountability and environmental law. At HLS, Dasha is also an Article Selection Editor and Executive Technical Editor for the Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. Outside of class, Dasha enjoys hiking and card games.
Dane Underwood 
Dane is a 2L from the Santa Ynez Valley, California. He’s passionate about poverty, inequality, and the equitable distribution of the world’s resources. Dane is hoping to marry into wealth, but he’s preparing for a career in climate and environmental justice as a backup plan. When he’s not studying, Dane likes to spend time with friends, play the drums, and watch anime.
Erika Holmberg
Erika is a 3L originally from Los Angeles who is passionate about North Korea and China-related human rights issues and refugee rights. As an undergrad at Columbia, she double-majored in East Asian Studies and Political Science, wrote her senior thesis about the obstacles preventing the UNHCR from protecting North Korean defectors in China, and served as President of Columbia’s chapter of Liberty in North Korea (LiNK). After college, she worked as a paralegal at the Antitrust Division of the DOJ in D.C. At HLS, she also serves as APALSA’s Membership Chair and is involved in the International Human Rights Clinic and International Law Journal. She spent her 1L summer at Greater Boston Legal Services’ Immigration Unit and her 2L summer at Gibson Dunn’s D.C. office.
Hannah Gerdes
Hannah is a second-year law student at HLS from the Chicago area. She is interested in regulatory health and bioethics, and was a project member for Advocates last year.
Ariella Katz
Ariella, a native Bostonian, is a 2L at HLS. She started Freedom Words, a Moscow-based creative writing and theater program for people transitioning to life after prison. With Freedom Words, Ariella published Does the Sun Have a Light Switch? A Literary-Criminal Almanac (Translit, 2018) and produced two collaboratively-written plays. Ariella spent her 1L summer at the European Court of Human Rights, researching and writing judgments on torture. At HLS, Ariella is involved in the Prison Legal Assistance Project, Harvard International Law Journal, and Harvard Human Rights Journal. She is also a Research Assistant in class action law. Ariella earned her B.A. at the University of Chicago where she studied the relationship between love and politics. She is a published poet.
Carolina Rabinowicz 
Carolina is from Long Island, New York and is a 2L at HLS interested in counter-terrorism and human rights. After graduating from Columbia University in 2018 with a B.A. in English Literature, she worked at a New York law firm in their financial regulation practice. In her free time, Carolina enjoys rock climbing, biking around Cambridge, and making elaborate desserts. At HLS, she is active in La Alianza and was a Research Assistant for the Program on International Law and Armed Conflict during her 1L year.
Monica (Jung Hyun) Lee
Monica is a 3L originally from Seoul, Korea interested in human rights and communication strategies to advance social justice. Prior to law school, she double-majored in international studies and psychology at Northwestern University. At HLS, she is on the International Law Journal and is the President of the Law and Behavioral Science Association.
Emma Svoboda
Emma is a 2L from Boston, MA interested in human rights and foreign policy. She studied History and French at Northwestern University and worked for four years as a teacher, living in French Guiana, Kyrgyzstan, Macao, and Turkey. In her free time she loves reading, hiking, and cooking foods from places she’s visited. At HLS she is on the International Law Journal and is a Research Assistant for the Program on International Law and Armed Conflict Program.
Ankita Gupta
Ankita is a LL.M. Candidate at Harvard Law School originally from Toronto, Canada. After completing her Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Toronto and Juris Doctor from Osgoode Hall Law School, Ankita clerked at the Supreme Court of Canada and Court of Appeal for Ontario. Ankita is interested in business and human rights, and currently sits on the board of Canadian Lawyers for International Human Rights. In her free time, she enjoys reading, running and playing football and badminton.
Supervising Attorney(s)
Anna Crowe
Anna Crowe is a Lecturer on Law and the Assistant Director of the International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC). Her work focuses on refugee rights, particularly refugee documentation, humanitarian disarmament, and the right to privacy. Prior to joining the IHRC, Anna was a Legal Officer at Privacy International, a leading human rights organization that campaigns against unlawful communications surveillance across the globe. Anna previously worked as a constitutional lawyer for the New Zealand government and served at the New Zealand Supreme Court as a clerk to the Chief Justice. She also spent a year in Colombia working with the International Crisis Group as a Henigson Human Rights Fellow. In addition to an LL.M. from Harvard Law School, she holds conjoint law and arts degrees from the University of Auckland.
Beatrice Lindstrom (on leave until Spring 2022)
Beatrice Lindstrom is a Lecturer on Law and Clinical Instructor in the International Human Rights Clinic. Her work focuses on access to remedies for human rights violations, aid accountability, and Haiti. Prior to joining Harvard, Beatrice was Legal Director of the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti, an organization that works in partnership with Haitian lawyers and activists to bring grassroots struggles for human rights to the international stage. For nearly a decade, she has led advocacy and litigation to hold the UN accountable for causing a devastating cholera epidemic in Haiti. She was lead counsel in Georges v. United Nations, a class actions lawsuit on behalf of those injured by cholera. Lindstrom was previously an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights, and a Haiti country expert for Freedom House. She has extensive experience advocating in the UN human rights system, lobbying governments, and speaking in the media.