Meet The Fellows 2017

Marilyn Alvarado
CUNY John Jay College of Criminal Justice

Marilyn E. Alvarado is the daughter of a Salvadoran mother and a Honduran father. Her work with Safe Passage Project began as a U-LAMPER (Unaccompanied Latin American Minors Project), which led to her current position as a paralegal. In December 2016, she traveled to Dilley, Texas, to volunteer at the South Texas Residential Facility; a detention center that houses immigrant mothers and children. She is a first generation college graduate from CUNY John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She earned a degree in Forensic Psychology and an honors minor in Latin American studies and Human Services. Throughout college, she became a recipient of the Pinkerton Fellowship and worked with court-involved youth throughout New York City. She was also selected for the Prison-to-College Pipeline Program, where she took courses alongside incarcerated students. Her insight on the U.S. criminal justice system, education and immigration have inspired her to become an attorney.

Eugenie “Genie” Becker
University of Osnabruk

Eugenie Becker holds a Bachelor´s Degree in Psychology from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. In 2014, she completed her minor in International Relations and Communication & Design during her exchange semester at Bilkent University in Ankara. She is currently completing her graduate Degree in International Migration and Intercultural Relations at the University of Osnabrück, where she also worked as a student assistant in the „Coordination Refugees“ department of her university. Eugenie is active in various projects on Minority Rights and Anti-Racism. She plans to pursue a career in Social Policy and Intercultural Relations, with a focus on immigration rights from a post-colonial perspective. 

Jakub Belina-Brzozowski
Jagiellonian University

Jakub Belina-Brzozowski is a PhD student in sociology at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow. Tired of living in an academic ivory tower, he has in the course of the past few years spent a lot of time among Tibetan refugees in Kathmandu Valley, conducting research about their identity expressed in biographical narratives. He will be joining Humanity in Action directly from Tbilisi, Georgia where he has been doing his EVS for the last 8 months (youthwork, with the focus on No Hate Speech Movement projects). Passionate about dancing (especially tango and contact improvisation) and football (dedicated fan of Juventus Football Club), he also believes in the wisdom of good literature, and treats writers such as Max Frisch, Winfried Georg Sebald and Fiodor Dostoyevsky as an never-ending source of wonder and inspiration.

Sarah Bhatti
University of Osnabrück

Sarah Bhatti graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Social Work from the University of Applied Sciences Jena, where she gained her first experiences in project management and since then especially appreciates the collaboration of interdisciplinary teams. Her research focus lies in the interconnection of various social inequalities and she therefore puts emphasis on an intersectional perspective. Sarah aims for a critical analysis of asylum and immigration laws, as well as the implementation of the Geneva Refugee Convention on a national and European level. She is attending the master’s programme in International Migration and Intercultural Studies at the University of Osnabrück. As a member of the department student’s council and the academic commission, she advocates for her fellow student’s interests. She also spent a semester abroad at Corvinus University of Budapest. In her spare time, Sarah engages in the association “Exil – Refugees Centre Osnabrück,” as part of the cultural and public relations team.

Robert “Jack” Brisson
Middlebury College

A native Vermont resident, Robert (Jack) Brisson is a sophomore at Middlebury College studying French, German, Hebrew and English language through the lens of Comparative Literature. His experience as a homeschooler in elementary school and with alternative education programs in high school has developed his interest in education reform. In addition to academics, Jack coaches and practices the sport of fencing and edits and contributes to the campus literary magazine. After graduation, he plans to explore the intersections between social change, education and the arts.

Agnieszka “Aga” Chmiel
Nicolaus Copernicus University

Born and raised in Elbląg, Agnieszka Chmiel is fourth-year student of law at Nicolaus Copernicus University, specializing in human rights. She spent one semester in Zagreb during an Erasmus + exchange program. She was an intern at the United Nations Information Centre in Warsaw. Agnieszka is a member of the Erasmus Student Network. As an ESN Sport NCU Coordinator, she co-organized basketball matches under the patronage of the President of Toruń, "Yoga without borders" under the patronage of the NCU Rector and the representative of the City Council, in order to promote tolerance in Toruń. As a member of the European Law Students' Association in Seminar & Conferences section, she organised the seminar, Racism & Xenophobia in the light of refugees' crisis. Agnieszka is passionate about bachata, salsa and kizomba dancing. After NCU, Agnieszka plans to be a legal adviser trainee.

Alicja Dańkowska
Kozminski University

Alicja Dańkowska graduated from Kozminski University in September 2016, majoring in Systemic Management. She had received her Bachelor degrees in two fields: Ethnology and Graphics. Her main academic interests include such topics as: risk management in NGOs, social entrepreneurship and innovation, sharing economy and sustainable development. Since the beginning of her studies, she has been involved in the work of several NGOs based in her hometown of Wrocław, where she was responsible for co-organizing cultural events and working with socially marginalized children. She worked in two creative agencies, designing various campaigns. For the last few months, she has been working with refugees in Zagreb and on the Serbian-Hungarian border. She was also gathering information from volunteers working in the field regarding refugees’ situation in European countries, especially in Balkan states. She is interested in an alternative education and in the future would like to take part in creating an experimental school.

Kalina Dobrowska
University of Wrocław

Kalina Dobrowska is currently finishing her master's degree in public policy on University of Wrocław. Before that, she gained her bachelor's degree in Occupational Therapy. During her studies she took part in international programs connected with social exclusion (Community Based Mental Health in Nijmegen, Netherlands, and Diversity and Social Inclusion in Budapest, Hungary). She was also a trainer in the project, "Młodziw Grze," which was helping to raise civic competences among youth. From the field of human rights, Kalina is mostly interested in small excluded groups, such as elderly or mentally disabled people. She is also involved in issues connected with animal rights. Kalina is still not sure what her plans for the future are, but she believes the world is full of opportunities.

Erik Edman
University of Exeter

Born and raised in Athens, Erik Edman worked in Brussels for two years after graduating with an MSc in Political Sociology from the London School of Economics. Having had close contact with EU institutions as part of his job, he is now convinced that society remains excluded from this policy-making environment, which is becoming increasingly technocratic and alienating to citizens. That is why he left his position at CSR Europe, where he worked with multinational companies to improve their social and environmental sustainability strategies, and joined DiEM25, a political movement aimed at democratising the EU and making it directly accountable to all citizens. His main concern lies with the effects of austerity on Europe's ability to cope with the challenges it faces, and in particular the resulting marginalisation of countries at the European periphery and of minority groups. 

Erika Gallagher
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Erika Gallagher was born and raised in the Washington, D.C. area to a biracial, large and diverse family. She is a junior, triple-majoring in English Literature, Social Welfare and Gender & Women's Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which she attends on a Posse Foundation Full-Tuition Leadership Scholarship. As an Undergraduate Writing Fellow, Erika has conducted preliminary research on code-switching and code-meshing that she presented in Portland, Oregon in March, and has received both praise and strong critiques from many news outlets in recent months. She is the founder of First GEMs, a group for first-generation college students in the UW-Madison English Department, and is active in the LGBT+ community on campus. Erika enjoys soccer, singing, video games, animals and slowly dismantling systematic racism and institutional bias. She hopes to pursue a Ph.D in educational policy studies in the future.

Aleksandra “Ola” Hołyńska
University of Wrocław

Ola Hołyńska comes from Wrocław, Poland where she graduated in Adult Education and Social Marketing. Currently, she is finishing her master degree in Educational Guidance at the University of Wrocław. She also spent a semester abroad at the Department of Education at Stockholm University. She is a member of Diversja Association, which is responsible for the Human Library in Wrocław. The project challenges stereotypes and prejudices through dialogue between people. She has conducted many workshops about discrimination as an introduction to Human Library events. She is a teacher in a leisure-time centre at elementary school. She conducts workshops about Human Rights, especially Rights of the Child; intercultural society and global education.

Vladyslav “Vlad” Ivchenko
Kharkiv National Pedagogical University

Vladyslav Ivchenko is a social activist and volunteer interested in youth participation, gender equality and intercultural dialogue. He earned a master degree in History with a qualification “Teacher of History” from Kharkiv National Pedagogical University in 2012. From 2013 to 2015, he worked as an education methods specialist at the Kharkiv Teacher Training Institute where he had been conducting monitoring researches in education on the local and national levels. Vladyslav participated in the European Voluntary Service project “Dialogue for Peace” at the Danish NGO “Crossing Borders” from February to December 2015. He took part in the organization of various workshops and outreach activities for youth. He is currently employed as a Monitoring and Evaluation Officer under the Gender-based Violence Prevention and Response Protection Program at the International Medical Corps based in Mariupol (Eastern Ukraine). Vladyslav intends to continue his educational In October 2017 at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen (Germany). 

Małgorzata “Gosia” Agnieszka Kot
The Graduate School for Social Research (GSSR) at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences

Małgorzata has been an SRHR youth activist since 2009, engaged in various national and international organizations. She was a member of the Ponton Group of Sex Educators and coordinator of ASTRA Youth, a network of young advocates for sexual and reproductive health and rights from Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkan countries. She represented the network at various regional and international conferences (Women Deliver, AWID 13th International Forum, among others). She is also a member of YouAct, a European Youth Network on Sexual and Reproductive Rights. Currently she's pursuing a PhD in sociology and conducting research on nonheteronormative motherhood in Poland. She's also engaged in volunteering for LGBTQI rights.

Aleksandra “Aleks” Lekowska
New York University

Aleksandra (Aleks) Lekowska is a senior at New York University Shanghai, double majoring in Social Science and Global China Studies. Born and raised in Lancut, South-Eastern Poland, she has always been passionate about interactions between cultures and languages. While attending high school at Ecole d'Humanite in Switzerland, Aleks realized that she had a strong academic interest in international development and decided to pursue it in college. While attending NYU Shanghai, Aleks interned at the Polish Consulate General and was involved in a project improving primary school facilities in New Delhi, India as a Deans' Scholar. During her junior year, she studied abroad in Accra, Ghana where she interned at the Human Rights Advocacy Centre, as well as in New York where she worked with an NGO supporting Holocaust survivors. As a backpacking enthusiast, Aleks takes every opportunity to travel on a budget without any precise itineraries.

Milosz Lindner
University of Warsaw

Miłosz Lindner comes from a southern part of Poland, Silesia. However, he has resided in Warsaw for the past three years. Miłosz graduated from the University of Warsaw at the College for Inter-Faculty Humanities. In the meantime, he travelled to Bordeaux, France and Tel-Aviv, Israel where he continued his studies. These days Miłosz is participating in some educational projects that he also develops and is working both in a hostel and language schools. Last year he organised a Day of Solidarity with Refugees in his hometown (that counts 4,000 inhabitants), which made him want to pursue introducing global topics to this particular local community. This year, he committed himself to organising an exhibition 'Anne Frank - History now' in cooperation with the Anne Frank Museum Amsterdam, Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau and House of Peace Foundation from Wrocław. He hopes that one day he will be able to speak Hebrew fluently.

Vedika Luthra
University College Utrecht

Vedika Luthra was born in India but moved to Poland when she was 7, where she completed her schooling. She is a first year student at the University College in Utrecht and plans to major in law and history. Vedika enjoys learning about human rights and has experience volunteering with refugees and children with terminal illnesses. Currently, she is a member of Enactus where she helps organise social entrepreneurship projects both locally and abroad. At school, she played an active role in service learning activities. As a result, Vedika hopes to pursue a career in human rights law. During her spare time, Vedika enjoys photography, writing, food and writing about food.

Vaclav Masek
New York University

Vaclav Masek is a Senior at New York University, triple-majoring in Sociology, Spanish and Global Liberal Studies, with a concentration in Politics, Rights, and Development. He has spent time abroad in London and Buenos Aires. His Senior thesis is concerned with the transitional justice system, collective memory and indigenous peoples in his home country of Guatemala. Vaclav interned at Human Rights Watch and focused on Latin America’s efforts to promote accountability for past human rights violations. His chapter regarding Guatemala was published in HRW’s 2017 World Report. Vaclav was awarded the 2017 Global Impact Award for his community engagement project in which he installs ecological stoves and water filtrating systems in underprivileged rural areas in his country, a project now running into its fourth year. After being awarded the Department’s Fellowship, Vaclav will pursue a Masters in Latin American and Caribbean Studies at NYU this fall.

Sarah Molina
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

An aspiring museum curator and educator, Sarah Molina graduated summa cum laude from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a major in art history and a minor in philosophy, politics, and economics. Currently, she participates in a museum professional training program at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., where she works on issues related to diversity, inclusion and education. Previously, she was an Andrew W. Mellon Undergraduate Curatorial Fellow at the Art Institute of Chicago for two years. At UNC-Chapel Hill, she was a Morehead-Cain Scholar, Phi Beta Kappa inductee, recipient of the Chancellor's Award in Art History, and a Bryan Social Innovation Fellow. She helped found an arts education initiative entitled Art&Life to increase access to the arts in her hometown and was involved in a number of social justice organizations. Sarah's research focuses on cross-cultural objects produced in the medieval Islamic world.

Agnieszka Przytarska
Nicolaus Copernicus University

Agnieszka Przytarska, a Nicolaus Copernicus University law student, was born in Nakło nad Notecią and went to school there. She became interested in human rights after her first lecture on the subject. Agnieszka became involved in Homo Homini- human rights scientific group and became an active member of a local Amnesty International group. In the AI group, she was able to organize many events, workshops and lectures, including Write for Rights in Toruń, which beat the record of the written letters each year. Agnieszka worked as a camp counselor at a YMCA camp and at Camp Cayuga. In her free time she learns new languages – currently Chinese – travels and reads books. After graduating, Agnieszka plans to pursue a career as a human rights lawyer.

Jay Todd Richey
Western Kentucky University

Jay Todd Richey is a 2017 graduate of Western Kentucky University with majors in Political Science and Asian Religions and Cultures, and a minor in Legal Studies. Twenty-two years old from Glasgow, Kentucky, Jay served as a two-term Student Body President and Student Regent on the WKU Board of Regents and was a member of the WKU Chinese Language Flagship Program while at WKU. He is also the founder and chair of the WKU Student Coalition for Renters' Rights, an organization that advocates for adequate legal protection for renters in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. In 2015, he was selected to serve as an intern in the Public Affairs Section at the United States Embassy in Beijing, China. Following the Humanity in Action Fellowship, he will pursue a Masters in Human Rights. He hopes to one day dedicate his life to public service and human rights advocacy.

Bryan Stromer
Vanderbilt University

Originally from New York City, Bryan Stromer is a recent graduate of Vanderbilt University, where he majored in Human & Organizational Development. On campus, he was a tour guide, a Resident Adviser (RA), a Posse Foundation scholar, a co-founder of Vanderbilt’s student disability advocacy organization and has served on various committees for the university. During the spring of 2016, he had the opportunity to study strategic communications in Copenhagen, Denmark. He is passionate about using communications and branding strategies to advance social justice issues, with a particular interest in causes related to disability. In August, Bryan will join Microsoft in Seattle, WA as a Product Marketing Manager for Windows Office.

Ana-Maria Szilagyi
Columbia University & Sciences Po Paris

Ana-Maria Szilagyi was born in Romania, in a world transitioning away from Ceausescu’s communist regime. At twelve, when she moved to South Italy, Calabria, with her mother and sister, her perception of the world changed as the reality around her altered her dreams and interests. In Calabria, a region rich in natural beauty and history but crippled by the Mafia, Romanians were not welcome; the difficulties of being an immigrant informed the person that she has become and shaped her sensitivity. She knows what it means to have neither rights nor recognition in the place where one has been fated to live. This past summer, she volunteered in Turkey at a school where children, all Syrian refugees, took biweekly classes. She coordinated English instructional activities and worked directly with the children. Her long-term goal is to fund a pan-European NGO that advocates for refugees and disseminates practical ideas for receiving them.

Yaromyr Udod
National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy

Yaromyr Udod is currently pursuing his M.A in Sociology at Kyiv-Mogyla Academy. Yaromyr has been involved in Amnesty International Ukraine as an activist since 2013. He organized or co-organized campaign events like Letter Writing Marathon at his university for several years in order to raise awareness about human rights violations among students. In 2015, he also did an internship working with database creation and preparation of draft materials for AI. Besides that, he took part in a few international projects on topics such as migration, gender and politics, collective memory, as well as Roma rights. Along with his studies, Yaromyr is working as a research assistant for a Fulbright Visiting scholar to Ukraine who is conducting research on corruption in public service in post-Soviet countries.

Eleni Zervos
Brown University

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Eleni Zervos spent her high school years in Greece, before graduating from Brown University in 2015 with a degree in International Relations. As an undergraduate, she was an organizer for Amnesty International and a coordinator of Brown Refugee Youth Tutoring and Enrichment (BRYTE), a tutoring organization that pairs 130 Brown students with recently resettled refugee youth in the Providence community for one-on-one, in-home tutoring. After graduating, she returned to Greece to work as a Research Associate at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy where she studied sex trafficking in Greece, and was also a program intern at the Greek Council for Refugees. Eleni is interested in the intersections of social justice and law with a focus on the rights of refugees and trafficking victims, and aims to pursue work in public policy.