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09-10 Crowley Scholars

The Leitner Center for International Law and Justice and the Crowley Program in International Human Rights are pleased to announce the selection of the 2009-2010 Crowley Scholars:

Jacqueline Bevilaqua

Mari Byrne

Cristine Delaney

Maria-Elena Kolovos

Jesse Melman

Matthew Putorti

Amy Rossnagel

Marni von Wilpert

 

Jacqueline Bevilaqua Jacqueline graduated with a B.A. in Government and Sociology from Georgetown University in May 2006. She is dedicated to the causes of international human rights and also human and civil rights for LGBT people.  While in college Jacqueline developed and honed her interest in international human rights and in activism by interning with OxFam, End the Occupation, and Physicians for Human Rights.   After receiving her undergraduate degree, Jacqueline worked with the Liberian Human Rights Commission, taking statements from Liberians living in Staten Island, New York and detailing their experiences during the Liberian Civil War.  

At Fordham Law, Jacqueline is involved in many student organizations.  She is co-chair of Fordham’s LGBT student group, Outlaws and also Co-President of Fordham Law’s chapter of Amnesty International.  Jacqueline spent the summer of 2009 interning with the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission and also externing at the Superior Court of Bergen County in New Jersey.

 

Cristine Delaney Cristine graduated from Assumption College in 2006. She double majored in Political Science and History and minored in English. Cristine then moved to Oslo, Norway where she received her Masters Degree in The Theory and Practice of Human Rights. Cristine was awarded the Fulbright Scholarship for 2006-2007. The scholarship funded her first year Masters studies as well as an independent art study focusing on social justice art at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo. Cristine was awarded the Fritt-Ord (Free Word) grant to fund the writing of her thesis in the second year of her Masters study. In Norway Cristine focused on the intersection of human rights and democracy. She also worked at the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights as a research assistant.

Since coming to Fordham, Cristine has joined the Board of Directors for the Legal Education and Advocacy Project and volunteers weekly with the project. She is on the staff of the International Law Journal. Following her first year, she interned at the Scholars at Risk Network where her work focused on violations of academic freedom.

 

Mari Byrne Mari earned her B.S. in Social Work from George Mason University, and her M.S.W. in Social Enterprise Administration from Columbia University. Prior to law school, Mari worked as a residential counselor in a transitional facility for women exiting the Virginia State prison system. She has spent the past several summers organizing service learning projects in Jamaica, Palau, Bangladesh, and Peru that expanded educational opportunities in under-served communities .

During her first year of law school, Mari interned with the Legal Aid Societys Prisoners Rights Project responding to complaints from inmates in New York State correctional facilities. Following her first year, she interned in the Community and Economic Development Unit at Brooklyn Legal Services Corp. A working with not-for-profit organizations on transactional issues. At Fordham, she is a Stein Scholar for the Public Interest, president of Prisoners Rights Advocates, and a member of the Fordham Law Review. In conjunction with her J.D. degree, Mari is pursuing a Masters degree in International Political Economy and Development at Fordham.

 

Maria-Elena Kolovos Maria-Elena graduated from Yale University in 2003 earning a B.A. (with distinction) in Literature and completing premedical studies. Her senior thesis drew from neuroscience and literary theory to examine the effect of trauma on a Hiroshima writer’s narrative process. A Los Angeles native, Maria-Elena continued neuroscience studies while interning at the University of California, Los Angeles Brain Mapping Center. The lab’s investigations focused on the neural correlates of empathy.

In 2001, Maria-Elena lived and worked in Bhaktapur, Nepal as a volunteer teacher (Sunshine School) and medical assistant (Bhaktapur Cancer Hospital). Her work focused on encouraging self-expression to help children safely confront conflict, in particular Maoist-State violence.

Prior to Fordham, Maria-Elena spent a year in Paros, Greece studying Bel Canto voice and performing classical voice semi-professionally. She remains a dedicated musician.

At Fordham, Maria-Elena is an Immigration Advocacy Project Board member, Urban Law Journal Staff member, and Legal Writing Program Teaching Assistant. In summer 2009, as a Leitner Intern, she worked at the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, assisting attorneys with investigations into past and current human rights abuses in Iran. Maria-Elena is fluent in Greek and proficient in French and Japanese.  

 

Jesse Melman Jesse graduated from the University of Rochester in 2005 with a B.A. in Political Science and History.  He was awarded the Willson Coates Senior Honors Essay Award for his honors thesis, “But Words Can Never Harm Me: Yassir Arafat as an Ideologue and Statesman, 1978-1988,” which analyzed Yassir Arafat’s use of rhetoric in shaping PLO policy throughout the 1970s and 1980s.  Following graduation, Jesse spent a year working for the International Relations Department of the 92nd Street Y in New York.  There, he continued to cultivate his interest in international human rights while administering and staffing the Y’s Ford Motor Company International Fellowship.  Jesse then left New York to spend two years in Israel as a Graduate Merit Fellow at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he obtained an M.A. in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies.

 

Following Jesse’s first year of law school, he interned at the Institute of Legal Practice and Development in Rwanda, where he compiled a benchbook on gender-based violence to be used as a substantive and procedural guideline by the Rwandan judiciary.  At Fordham, Jesse is a staff member of Fordham Law Review and a teaching assistant for the Legal Writing Program.

 

Matthew Putorti Matthew Putorti graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Boston College in 2006 with a B.A. in Political Science and International Studies.  While at BC, he spent a summer as a volunteer English teacher in Mozambique, co-led an immersion trip to El Salvador, studied abroad at Oxford University, and wrote a Political Science Honor’s thesis that examined the sovereignty paradigm vis-à-vis humanitarian intervention and the conflict in Darfur.  After graduating, Matthew spent one year volunteering in Sudan as the administrator of a program that brings young men from IDP camps in South Darfur to a technical school in the town of El Obeid for vocational training.  Upon returning to the US, Matthew served in the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps, during which time he worked with Habitat for Humanity in the Gulf Coast and as an environmental education instructor at an outdoor school in southern California. 

At Fordham, Matthew is a member of the Fordham International Law Journal, a board member of the Student Hurricane Network, and co-chair of OUTLaws.  He spent his 1L summer as a Leitner intern with Advocacy Forum in Kathmandu, Nepal where he wrote a transitional justice guidebook to teach human rights defenders about the mechanisms (i.e. prosecutions, reparations) through which women can seek justice for human rights violations suffered during Nepal’s civil war.

 

Amy Rossnagel Amy graduated from the College of William and Mary in 2006.  During her college experience, she had the opportunity to study abroad in China, studying the language and culture at Tsinghua University in Beijing, concentrating on the minorities often overlooked in China’s western regions.  She also studied and interned in Argentina, studying public and private microfinance initiatives, and working with Avanzar, a University of Buenos Aires microfinance project working primarily with Bolivian immigrants in the villas of Buenos Aires.  This experience formed the basis for her bachelor’s thesis, Microfinance Institutions during Financial Crises.  Prior to returning to William and Mary, she spent a semester in New York City, interning for the Institute for International Humanitarian Affairs, housed at Fordham University.  After completing her bachelor’s, she was a Fulbright Scholar in Sweden, studying peace and conflict at Uppsala University.  Her project there was entitled Investigating Aid’s Role in Post-Conflict Situations, and she also helped to develop a dataset compiling events documented by the International Court for the Former Yugoslavia.

Upon returning to New York, she entered Fordham’s Master’s program in International Political Economy and Development and interned at Freedom House’s Research Office in New York.  Before entering law school, she was a consultant for the United Nations Development Program’s Bureau of Conflict Prevention and Recovery.  There she worked on a report entitled Post-Conflict Economic Recovery: Enabling Indigenous Drivers, which was launched in Fall 2008.  Since entering law school she has been working part time at Fordham’s Center for International Policy Studies.

 

Marni von Wilpert Marni received a degree in Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of California, Berkeley in 2005.  At Berkeley, she wrote an undergraduate honors thesis titled, “The Golden Melting Pot:  California Residents’ Reactions to Mexican Immigrants”.  After graduating, she worked as a case manager for victims of domestic violence at the San Diego Family Justice Center before joining the Peace Corps in 2006.  During her time in the Peace Corps, Marni worked with a small community in Botswana to do HIV/AIDS prevention and education.   In the Summer of 2009 she worked in her hometown of San Diego, CA as an intern with the Legal Aid Society.  As an intern, Marni assisted low-income clients with domestic violence cases and eviction proceedings. 

At Fordham Law School, Marni is a Stein Scholar for Public Interest and is a member of the Domestic Violence Awareness Club and Students for Reproductive Justice.  In the Fall of 2009 Marni will serve as a staff member on the Fordham Law Review.     


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