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2019-2020 Rights Writers Announced

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Congratulations to the 2019-2020 Global Human Rights Scholars Program’s Rights Writers.  These undergraduate students were competitively selected to join the fourth year of the Institute’s “Rights Writers” team, where participants use a shared blog platform to explore in-depth and thoughtful analysis across a range of diverse human rights issues, shaping discussions at Duke and beyond. The project provides a public space for students to offer their insight as well as develop analytical and writing skills, particularly with regards to writing for a general public. Global Scholars blog on a monthly basis about a human rights topic of their choice, read and comment on one another’s draft posts, and meet regularly to discuss. In addition, the Scholars program offers students an opportunity to engage with the work of the Duke Human Rights Center at the Kenan Institute for Ethics and its network of scholars and practitioners.

The Rights Writers will blog December 2019 – April 2020.  Visit the blog

 

Madeleine Cochrane

Madeleine Cochrane
Madeleine Cochrane is a senior from Reston, VA majoring in Public Policy Studies with a certificate in Human Rights and minor in History. At Duke, she has tailored her academic trajectory to understanding how to advance human rights at the intersection of community empowerment, immigration, law, data, and technology. Following college, she hopes to attend law school and work towards developing the underexplored field of data privacy, accountability, and regulation while continuing to empower Latinx communities across the country. In her free time, you can either find her salsa dancing or choreographing for Duke Sabrosura’s Latin dance team, singing with Duke Deja Blue a capella, writing poetry, listening to the Daily, or meditating. She is so excited to be a part of the Rights Writers team and have the opportunity to delve deeper into an increasingly relevant topic as technology bounds forwards at an ever exponential rate, leaving so many questions surrounding the ramifications for human rights.

 

Isabel Ivanescu

Isabel Ivanescu
Isabel Ivanescu is a senior majoring in Political Science with a concentration in Security, Peace, and Conflict Studies. On campus, she is involved in the Duke Program in American Grand Strategy, runs the Duke Moot Court team, and competes with Duke Debate. Last Summer, Isabel interned at the Institute for the Study of War. She is originally from Detroit, Michigan and plans to move to DC to work in foreign policy after graduation. Isabel speaks Romanian and French. Her blog posts will deal with the intersection of post-conflict reconstruction and human rights through a series of case studies on effective and ineffective models of ethnic and sectarian power sharing

 

Justin Koga

Justin Koga
Justin Koga is a junior from Irvine, CA majoring in Public Policy and minoring in History and Statistics. In his studies at Duke, he has explored deeply the relationship between race and national origin and their effects on human rights and the distribution of policy outcomes. In his spare time, Justin is heavily involved in the music scene at Duke. He is a cellist in the Duke Symphony Orchestra and also produces Hip-Hop/House music for Small Town Records. Upon graduating, Justin hopes to pursue a career in corporate social responsibility.

 

Maya Lytje

Maya Lytje
Maya Lytje is a freshman who was born in Denmark but grew up in the Boston area. She is considering a major in International Comparative Studies with a minor in Environmental Policy and a certificate in Human Rights. She is currently in the Ethics, Leadership, and Global Citizenship Focus Cluster where she is involved with Launch Lab through the Kenan Refugee Project. She is also a Green Devil working with the Sustainable Duke office and an executive on the activism committee for the Duke American Sign Language Club. In her free time, you can find Maya out sailing, hiking, or at the rock wall in Wilson Gym. She is excited to be writing about the intersection of immigration and human rights in the United States.

 

Liyu Woldemichael

Liyu Woldemichael
Liyu was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia but was raised in Montgomery, AL. She uses she/her/hers pronouns. She is majoring in Public Policy and wants to receive the Human Rights Certificate. On campus, she is a Baldwin Scholar and works for the Outreach committee to design meaningful service work. She is the Vice President of Duke NAACP, Head of Content for The Bridge, and Programming Chair for Duke Ethiopian and Eritrean Student Transnational Alliance (DESTA). She also works at the Center for Human Rights at the Franklin Humanities Institute. She is interested in social justice and in using the intersectionality framework to make policy decisions and evaluations. After spending her summer in Kauai, Hawaii on a DukeEngage project focusing on sustainability, she became interested in the application of intersectionality to climate change and environmental disaster response. Her blog posts will focus on the human rights issues that climate change raises.

 

Jenny Zheng

Jenny Zheng
Jenny Zheng is a junior from Denver, Colorado, majoring in Biology with minors in Global Health and Chemistry. She is a passionate advocate for the right to quality health care and hopes to one day work as a physician in underserved communities around the world. Jenny explores her interests through her research at the Duke Global Health Institute and at KCMC Hospital in Moshi, Tanzania, developing interventions to decrease harmful alcohol use in Tanzania. Jenny is also an EMT with Duke EMS and president of TEDxDuke. In her free time, she enjoys watching documentaries, hiking, and taking falls like a champ while attempting to ski. Jenny believes that words are powerful, and hopes to use her words to facilitate necessary conversations over the implications of international aid on human rights in global health.

 

 

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