Human Rights / Norms

Research Interest

Rachel Fisher

Graduate Student
Political Science

Rachel Fisher is pursuing her PhD in Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research focuses on comparative politics and political behavior, including candidate ambition and recruitment, international development, and policy evaluation. She employs experimental methods to study gender differences in political participation.

Fisher is the recipient of the 2021 IIS Simpson Research Grant.

Jennie Barker

Graduate Student
Political Science

Jennie Barker is a Ph.D. student in political science at the University of California, Berkeley, where she studies international influences on democratization. Her current research examines recipient government behavior toward democracy assistance. Prior to coming to UC Berkeley, Barker worked at the National Endowment for Democracy and completed a Fulbright fellowship in Germany.

Barker is also a recipient of the 2021 IIS Pre-Disseration Research Fellowship.

Joanna Vasquez

Undergraduate Student
Political Science

Joanna Vasquez is a junior from La Puente, California who is pursuing a B.A. in Political Science. Her research interests include labor law, immigration, public safety in Latin America, international relations, and foreign policy. Following her time at UC Berkeley, Vasquez hopes to work abroad as a teacher and ultimately go to law school to eventually become a labor law attorney and give back to her community.

Lisha Chen

Undergraduate Student
Media Studies
Gender and Women's Studies
Lisha Chen (she/her/hers) is a third year student at UC Berkeley majoring in Media Studies and Gender and Women’s Studies. Her research interests are the intersectionality of queer identities, Asian-American identities, social media, and contemporary issues. In her free time, she enjoys going on self-care photoshoots with her friends and binge-watching dystopian television shows.

Chris Hoofnagle

Professor of Law in Residence
Law

Chris Jay Hoofnagle helps students from different disciplines understand the interplay of law and technology. He is the author of Law and Policy for the Quantum Age (with Simson Garfinkel, Cambridge University Press, 2022). An elected member of the American Law Institute, Hoofnagle is of counsel to Gunderson Dettmer LLP.

Rodrigo Ramirez-Perez

Undergraduate Student
Political Science
Philosophy

Rodrigo Ramirez-Perez is a third year Political Science and Philosophy major. His academic interests include international organizations and their subversion of state sovereignty, the causes and exacerbating elements of genocides, and the long-term state stability-related effects of state violence on citizen populations. Rodrigo has served as a research assistant to Dr. Susan Hyde since May 2020, researching regional organizations, human rights, and policing in the United States. Since 2016, Ramirez-Perez has worked as a leadership...

Wendy Zhou

Undergraduate Student
Political Economy
Goldman School of Public Policy

Wendy Zhou is a junior from Alameda, CA studying Political Economy and Public Policy, with a concentration in development economics. Her academic interests center around the modernization of the Four Asian Tigers, rural-to-urban migration, and the efficacy of China’s poverty alleviation campaign on improving intergenerational mobility and quality of life. Zhou is passionate about democratization and human rights. While attending the University of Hong Kong in Summer ‘19, she engaged with the increasingly volatile Hong Kong politics and participated in pro-democracy protests. She currently...

Rana Nejad

Undergraduate Student
Political Science

Rana Nejad is a student at UC Berkeley completing her B.A. in Political Science with a minor in Human Rights. Throughout her studies, she has focused mostly on the Middle East and North Africa region where she explores topics ranging from security and counterrorism to refugee rights and humanitarian development. Over the years, she has worked with nonprofits that advocate for the rights of immigrants and refugees along the U.S.-Mexico border, as well as contributed to a number of international affairs publications. Moving forward, she hopes to further advocate for the human rights of...

Mallika Luthar

Undergraduate Student
Political Science

Mallika Luthar is a fourth-year student majoring in Political Science with minors in Public Policy and Human Rights. Her research interests include exploring election outcomes and the impacts of technology on political participation. She is currently working on an honors thesis focusing on the effects of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Elections on political preferences. Upon graduation, Mallika will be working as a technology policy consultant before going to law school to pursue tech/IP law. Outside of her academic and professional interests, Mallika loves being outdoors, playing piano...

Olivia Nouriani

Undergraduate Student
Political Science
Mathematics
Arabic

Olivia Nouriani is a fifth-year student triple majoring in Political Science, Mathematics, and Arabic. She is interested in migration and diaspora studies and Middle Eastern politics, and has previously assisted research projects on Muslim-Jewish relations in the Middle East and the the transnational circulation of transgender rights in the Global South. On campus, she is involved in migrant and labor justice movements. She hopes to pursue a PhD in social science after graduating.