Matilde da Luz Andrade Carreira (she/her) is a Master’s student in Human Rights Studies. Her concentration is on gender-based violence and women’s access to justice, with a particular interest in Timor-Leste. That interest is both professional and personal. She interned at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and was inspired by her great uncle, a humanitarian doctor remembered for saving hundreds of lives during a cholera outbreak in the region. His legacy continues to inspire the way she thinks about care and human rights.
Before Columbia, Matilde studied History and International Relations at King’s College London, where she explored topics like post-conflict peacebuilding, the history of feminist political thought, and the War on Terror.
As a staff writer, Matilde is especially interested in how human rights frameworks show up (or fail to) in post-conflict and transitional justice settings.
Mara Bulzan (she/her) is a Romanian student in the Dual Degree program with Sciences Po, majoring in Political Humanities and Human Rights. She was awarded the ISHR Human Rights Research Award to study accountability mechanisms in Syria and interned at the Roma Peoples’ Project at Columbia’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights, where she became interested in forced displacement, cultural genocide and cultural rights of ethnic minorities. She currently chairs the International Humanitarian Law department of the Red Cross and serves as an editor for the Student Journal of Human Rights. Beyond academics, she is passionate about debate, especially teaching it to teenagers as a way to share the joy of argumentation, and has coached the French National Debate Team. In her free time, Mara collects postcards and is always on the lookout for new soups from around the world to try.
Gracyn Elizabeth McGathy (she/her) is an M.A. Candidate in Human Rights with a concentration in Forced Migration and Refugee Studies. As a Lin-Wang Education Fellow at Columbia University and U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholar in Arabic, Gracyn is interested in international refugee law and displacement crises in the Middle East. Driven by her experience providing humanitarian aid at the Diavata Refugee Camp in Greece, Gracyn is passionate about protecting and advocating for those affected by conflict across the globe.
Melina Rozehkhan (she/her) is a Dual BA Trinity College Dublin–Columbia University student, currently studying Political Science and Human Rights at Columbia. Her work focuses on international relations, security studies, and women’s rights—particularly in the Middle East. She has worked with UNICEF, UN Women, the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, and several think tanks, conducting research on women’s rights in Iran and Afghanistan.
If you are interested in becoming a staff writer for RightsViews, please contact the editors for more information on upcoming recruitment dates at [email protected].