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Each year, the Institute for the Study of Human Rights welcomes a select number of visiting scholars to conduct research on a variety of human rights topics. Past visiting scholars have included federal judges, attorneys, trailblazers in NGO advocacy, academics and medical doctors. These scholars have come from more than 35 countries and form an essential part of ISHR’s global community of human rights researchers, scholars, and advocates.
Prospective scholars and others interested in researching human rights are encouraged to explore the biographies of some of our recent scholars below. Use the tabs below to sort through our scholars by research specialization. Click here for a list of additional visiting scholars.
To learn more about the Visiting Scholars Program and how to apply, click here.
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Basuli Deb (PhD) is a scholar and activist working on gender justice, human rights, law, and literature. She teaches/mentors at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. A Global Scholar at the interdisciplinary Institute for Research on Women (IRW) at Rutgers-New Brunswick, she co-founded the international Research Group on Dalit and Adivasi Studies which works on caste justice and indigenous rights. Deb’s first monograph Transnational Feminist Perspectives on Terror in Literature and Culture focuses on human rights violations in the context of Islamophobia, indigenous ethnocide, caste injustice, settler colonial occupation, colonial wars, and apartheid. She has also published multiple sole authored peer reviewed articles on gender based violations, and co-edited a special issue and two anthologies.
Her current work at Columbia on the Rohingya genocide and the accompanying refugee crisis has branched out from her next monograph project on the connected materialities of indigenenous and transmigrant lives that she is now completing. She was invited to offer recommendations on forced impregnation in the Rohingya genocide and the legal vacuum around it in human rights laws and international policies/practices at a High Level Side Event panel at the sixty-third Commission on the Status of Women at the UN. This event on Gender Violence: Prevention, Protection, and Social Exclusion was co-sponsored by the Permanent Mission of Bangladesh, the Permanent Mission of Denmark, UN/NGO Commitee on Migration, UN/NGO Commitee on the Commission on the Status of Women, and the PEACE Foundation. Deb was also an invited speaker at the Roosevelt Institute of Public Policy in NYC on women and children in the Myanmar genocide as they navigate bureacracies around international human rights conventions and practices as well as national sovereignty at home and host nations in South and South East Asia. In her keynote address at the 8th International Conference of the Centre for Media and Celebrity Studies “From MeToo to UsToo” she argued for a movement that addresses sexual violence that often accompanies economic violence against legally vulnerable migrant populations. Deb has partnered with NYC Mayor’s Commission on Gender Equity to promote the UN campaign called 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence. She is a member of the NGO Committee on the Status of Women that supports the work of the UN Commission on the Status of Women and UN Women. During her earlier research and writing on sexual violence in the Guatemalan genocide against the indigenous Mayans she worked with exiled leaders of the revolution as well as various advocacy organizations and sectors of civil society, such as Guatemalan Human Rights Commission, Centro de Accion Legal de Derechos Humanos, Defensoria de la Mujer Indigena, Alianza Contra la Impunidad, and the Rigoberta Menchú Foundation. In India she has worked on gender based violence against lower caste and indigenous women with the Human Rights Commission, the Women’s Commission, and the Association For Protection of Democratic Rights.
As a featured author, critic, and filmmaker, Deb has been interviewed in journal, print media, and conference platforms, as well as television, and web broadcasts. She continues to serve as an invited speaker on academic and public debates around human rights and gender discrimination at conferences, campuses, consulates, and foundations across the US and abroad, and as an external expert for various institutes/organizations. Currently on the steering committee of the Modern Language Association (MLA) Radical Caucus, she has been internationally and nationally elected/selected to serve in various feminist leadership capacities, such as the MLA Delegate Assembly, the Women of Color Leadership Project of the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA), and as a founding member of NWSA’s South Asian Feminist Caucus. A Distinguished Fellow of the Indian American Intellectuals’ Forum, Deb brings her professional experience in the fields of global issues, human rights, gender relations, and feminist leadership to US foreign policy dialogues. She serves on the advisory board of the Center for Media and Celebrity Studies in Toronto which is engaged in social justice research and activism.
Dr. Elvira Domínguez-Redondo (LLB, Dip. Business Management, M.Phil, PhD) is Associate Professor of International Law at Middlesex University, London (UK) and Adjunct Lecturer of the Irish Center for Human Rights (NUI Galway, Ireland).In the past, Dr. Domínguez-Redondo held different academic positions, at the Transitional Justice Institute (University of Ulster); the Irish Centre for Human Rights (NUI, Ireland); the University of Alcalá de Henares (Spain); and University of Carlos III de Madrid (Spain). She has worked as a consultant with the Special Rapporteur on torture at the Office of the High Commisisoner for Human Rights (Switzerland).
Dr. Domínguez-Redondo specialises in international law and human rights legal theory. She is the author of two books, Public Special Procedures of the UN Commission on Human Rights and Minority Rigths in Asia (co-authored with Prof. J Castellino). She has also written a wide range of articles on international law and human rights topics for academic journals. Her current research focuses on the impact of politicization and cooperation between States on the growth and efficiency of the United Nations human rights system.
Alexander Dukalskis earned a dual Ph.D. in Political Science and Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame where his research focused on authoritarian regimes, transitional justice, and international human rights norms. Alex's dissertation examined the ways in which dominant state ideologies in North Korea and Burma help sustain authoritarian rule and he has conducted fieldwork in Myanmar, Thailand, and Korea for this project. Alex has also worked with the International Debate Education Association (IDEA) and the Open Society Institute (OSI) to help build debate clubs and networks of young people in, among other places, China, Burma, Israel & the West Bank, Nepal, Uganda, Bangladesh, Mongolia, and Jordan. Alex's published work is in print or forthcoming in Human Rights Quarterly, the Journal of Peace Research, International Studies Review, Communist & Post-Communist Studies, and Democratization.
Ding Fangguan, also known as Gu Chaun, is a researcher and assistant director of the Institute for Information Society Studies (IISS) in the School of Social Sciences at China University of Political Science and Law. His research interests include internet freedom, freedom of press, and human rights issues in China. His publications on these topics have been used by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Reporters Without Borders, Amnesty International, and other international organizations. At Columbia, his research covered intellectual property, privacy, and "The Rise of Chinese Internet Citizens Rights Movement."
Bart De Sutter holds from Ghent University (Belgium) an M.A. in history and an M.A. in political science. In July 2009 he started as a PhD student at the Department of History of Antwerp University (Belgium) with a Dehousse scholarship. Since October 2010 he has been a PhD fellow of the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) at the same institution. In 2008 he won the yearly André Schaepdrijver award for best Master's thesis in history at Ghent University. He contributed articles to a number of academic journals, among which is the History Workshop Journal.
