J.S.D. Program

J.S.D. Students and Candidates


Our J.S.D. students and candidates hail from all over the world and from a variety of graduate law faculties. They are listed below in alphabetical order by last name. 

   
 

Olivier Barsalou
Canada

Olivier is a J.S.D. student from Canada. He studied law at the Faculty of Political Science and Law of the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) where he earned a B.A. (2005) in International Law and International Relations and an LL.M. (2007) in International Law. In 2008, he graduated from NYU School of Law with an LL.M. in International Legal Studies. He is interested in the areas of history, philosophy, and theory of international law. His J.S.D. research project will explore how international law responded and shaped the process of decolonization in the post-1945 world.

 

Vanessa Casado
Spain

Vanessa Casado is a J.S.D. student from Barcelona (Spain). She graduated first at Universitat Pompeu Fabra Law School (06') and second at Universitat Pompeu Fabra School of Economics (08'). She also holds LL.M. degrees from Universitat Pompeu Fabra (08') and University of Chicago Law School (09'), where she was class representative and received "The LL.M. Award for Integration and Inclusion".

Ms. Casado's areas of interest are Administrative Law and Environmental Law. She has been R.A. of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra Administrative Law Group, summer associate at Uría & Menéndez, and intern at the Environmental Area of Procuraduría General de la Nación in Colombia.

At NYU, Ms. Casado will address the legal and economic responses to water management in scenarios of scarcity and periodical droughts.

 

 

Yu-Jie Chen
Taiwan
 
Yu-Jie Chen is a J.S.D. student from Taiwan. Her thesis, supervised by Professor Ryan Goodman, will explore how global norms of international human rights law are internalized domestically, and how human rights treaties influence the behavior and attitudes of public and private actors. This research will use Taiwan, which recently ratified the two principal international human rights covenants, as a case study for considering these issues.  
 
Ms. Chen has rich professional experience in public interest law and practice. From 2009 to 2011, she was a senior research fellow at the U.S.-Asia Law Institute of NYU School of Law, where she primarily researched criminal justice and human rights developments in Taiwan and China. Prior to that, she served as a researcher and advocate for the prominent non-governmental organization, Human Rights in China. She is also a Taiwan lawyer and has practiced in the Taipei-based international law firm Lee and Li.
 
Ms. Chen received her LL.M. in international legal studies from NYU in 2008 and was awarded the Robert L. Bernstein Fellowship in International Human Rights. She also holds an LL.M. and LL.B. with honors from National Chengchi University in Taiwan.

   
  Megan Donaldson
Australia

Megan Donaldson studied law and history at the University of Melbourne.  During her LL.B. studies she had a particular focus on international and public law, and served as an editor of the Melbourne Journal of International Law.  Following graduation in 2006, she worked in competition litigation and as an associate to Justice Hayne of the High Court of Australia.  In 2009 she came to NYU to undertake an LL.M. in Legal Theory. She remained as a Research Fellow in NYU’s Institute for International Law and Justice, researching and writing on theoretical aspects of international law and administration.  Her dissertation will explore the emergence of ideas and practices of publicity in the international realm during the interwar period.
 

 

 

Lisa Kerr
Canada

Lisa Kerr studies the law of punishment. Her doctoral project considers how legal systems regulate the qualitative aspects of imprisonment. Lisa is a Trudeau Foundation Scholar and a Doctoral Fellow with the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Lisa graduated from the University of British Columbia in 2005. She completed a clerkship at the B.C. Court of Appeal and joined the litigation group of a national law firm in Vancouver. She has practiced in the areas of commercial litigation and insolvency and restructuring. In 2009 she completed an LL.M. at NYU. She returned to practice in Canada as staff lawyer at Prisoners' Legal Services, pursuing strategic litigation on human rights issues in provincial and federal prisons.

Ms. Kerr has served on the Lawyers' Committee of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, and is currently assisting on a test case challenge to the law that allows indefinite solitary confinement in Canadian prisons. She also serves on a litigation committee of Pivot Legal Society, in pursuit of the decriminalization of sex work in Canada.

 

David Kosař
Czech Republic

David is a J.S.D. student from the Czech Republic. He studied law at the Faculty of Law of Masaryk University in Brno where he earned an M.A. (2004) in Law and a Ph.D. in International Law (2009). He also holds an LL.M. in Human Rights Law from CEU (2007). He is interested in the areas of refugee & human rights law, comparative constitutional law, and transitional justice. Since graduation, he worked for a tax law firm, taught public international law at Masaryk University and has clerked at the Supreme Administrative Court of the Czech Republic (on leave of absence since August 2009). His J.S.D. research project will explore the notion of judicial accountability and its importance in countries in the process of a transition to democracy.

 

Yael Lifshitz-Goldberg
Israel

Yael's research focuses on Environmental Law. Her dissertation, supervised by Professor Katrina M. Wyman, addresses property rights in renewable energies.

Yael earned her LL.M. at New York University School of Law as an Arthur T. Vanderbilt scholar, and received the Environmental Law Prize for excellence in the field of environmental law. Yael also served as a member of the NYU Environmental Law Journal. Yael earned her LL.B., magna cum laude, in the joint program of Law and Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and was awarded the Ted Miller prize for distinction in interdisciplinary studies, Dean’s Honors awards and the Israeli Prime Minister’s grant. During this time Yael also served as a member of the editorial board of the Hebrew University Law Review, and as a teaching and research assistant focusing primarily on Law and Economics and Innovation Policies. 

Yael served as a Senior law clerk at the Israeli Supreme Court, for both Hon. Deputy Chief Justice Eliezer Rivlin and Hon. Justice Uzi Vogelman (2009-11), and is a member of the Israel Bar.

 

Karin Loevy
Israel

Karin Loevy is a J.S.D. candidate and a graduate of the NYU@NUS LL.M. program in law and the global economy. Her doctorate research focuses on theories and models of emergency powers and is supervised by Professor Mattias Kumm. Ms. Loevy received an LL.B. magna cum laude and a B.A. magna cum laude in history and philosophy, both from the Tel Aviv University. During her law school years Ms. Loevy served as a research and teaching assistant to Advocate Avigdor Feldman in his courses on Kafka’s Trial, Criminal Signs and the Materiality of Law. She also served as a member of the editorial board of Plilim, The Multi Disciplinary Journal of Public Law, Society and Culture. Ms. Loevy worked for six years, first as an intern and later as a lawyer, at Avigdor Feldman’s law firm in Tel Aviv handling administrative and constitutional law cases before military courts, administrative tribunals and the HCJ. She then moved to Singapore where she received the NYU@NUS dean’s award and pursued her LLM. In Singapore Ms. Loevy served as a research assistant to Professor Simon Chesterman on his intelligence project and to Professor Victor Ramraj on his forthcoming edited book Emergencies in Asia.

 

Rocío Lorca Ferreccio
Chile

Rocio is a J.S.D. student from Chile. She obtained her Law Degree with highest honors at Universidad de Chile ('07) were she worked as a teacher and reasearch assistant and directed the student's journal on law and humanities. After graduating she worked as a researcher for the National Defender's Office and as adjunct lecturer at Universidad Adolfo Ibañez. In 2010 she completed the LL.M. in Legal Theory at NYU with a Fulbright-Conicyt scholarship.

She is generally interested in determining how we should assess the relationship between economic and criminal justice from a normative perspective. In her LL.M. thesis she investigated the impact that extreme poverty should have in our status of responsible agents and during her doctoral studies she will be working under the supervision of professor Liam Murphy on the role that individual responsibility should play in a theory of distributive justice and on the way that principles of economic justice may operate as conditions for holding people responsible through criminal law.

  

 

Hiram A. Meléndez-Juarbe
Puerto Rico

Hiram obtained his Juris Doctor from the University of Puerto Rico Law School (2000), where he is currently Associate Professor, and holds an LL.M. degree from Harvard Law School (2002). After four years teaching constitutional, administrative law as well as cyberlaw, in  2008 he received his second LL.M. from NYU Law.
 
He is founder of the University of Puerto Rico Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic and co-founder of the Creative Commons Puerto Rico project. Hiram has published various articles on constitutional and administrative law and, from 2005 to 2007, served as policy and constitutional advisor to the Government of Puerto Rico.
 
His J.S.D. research focuses on the intersection between freedom of speech and intellectual property law.
 

Tamar Megiddo
Israel

Tamar Megiddo's research interests include international law and legal theory. Her J.S.D. thesis, supervised by Professor Jeremy Waldron, will explore the concept of fidelity to law and its relation to the issue of compliance to international law.

Tamar received her Bachelor’s degree in Law and the Humanities, magna cum laude, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Between 2009-2011 Tamar clerked for Israeli Supreme Court Justice Ayala Procaccia. She received her LL.M. in International Legal Studies from NYU School of Law in 2012.

Tamar’s publications include Lessons from Kosovo: The Law of Statehood and Palestinian Unilateral Independence, 5(2) J. INT’L L. & INT’L REL. 89 (2009) (co-authored with Zohar Nevo), and a first Hebrew Guide to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (2011) (co-authored with Ruth Halperin-Kaddari).

 

Tawanda Mutasah
Zimbabwe

After completing his practical legal education at the High Court of Zimbabwe and with DW Aitken Law practice, and earning an LL.B (Hons) degree from the University of Zimbabwe, Tawanda Mutasah was admitted as a Zimbabwean attorney in 1995. He earned a Master of Management (Economic Policy) degree from the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, and an LL.M. from Harvard Law School. Mutasah has received various academic awards and is also a recipient of the International Bar Association’s International Rule of Law Award. He won the University of Zimbabwe Law School Moot Court Trophy in 1992, becoming eligible to represent Zimbabwe at the Jessup International Moot Court competition, and representing the country at the first Southern Africa Moot Court competition. As head of the Ecumenical Legal Aid Clinic and Justice and Peace Commission in Zimbabwe, he collaborated with the Citizens’ Advice Bureau to provide public interest law services for indigent litigants.

Over a period of 15 years, beginning at the national and moving on to the regional and international planes, Mutasah has written, lectured, presented, and been a leader and practitioner on several human rights and governance themes and projects, including discrimination against Roma in Europe, effectiveness of the International Criminal Court, and sexual violence in the Congo.
His current research focuses on the intersection of international human rights law and policy, and regional human rights protection and governance mechanisms.

 

Hillary Nye
Australia

Hillary Nye is a J.S.D. student from Australia.  She received a B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science and an LL.B. (with honors) from the University of Queensland, in Brisbane, Australia. During that time, she worked as a research assistant in the areas of legal philosophy and ethical theory, as well as homelessness and public space issues. She also worked as a student advocate in the University of Queensland’s Clinical Legal Education Program, providing legal advice to homeless clients.

In 2011 she completed her LL.M. in Legal Theory at NYU. Her LL.M. thesis examines the relationship between the Rule of Law and adjudication. In her doctoral work, supervised by Professor Jeremy Waldron, she will continue to pursue jurisprudential questions from a Rule of Law perspective, exploring the implications of this approach for the debate between natural law and positivism.

 

 

Galia Rivlin
Israel

Galia Rivlin is a J.S.D. student. Her doctorate research concerns the question of extraterritorial application of constitutional safeguards. Her work is supervised by Professor David Golove. Ms. Rivlin completed her LLM as a Grotius scholar at NYU in 2007.  She received her LL.B., magna cum laude, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2006. Ms. Rivlin was cited on the Hebrew University Faculty of Law Dean's List for outstanding academic achievements in each year of law school. In 2005 Ms. Rivlin also received the Faculty of Law Award for Outstanding Academic Achievements and the Faculty of Law Jonathan Greenwald Award for excellence in family law. During her second and third year of law school Ms. Rivlin was a member of the editorial board of Mishpatim, the Hebrew University Law Review. Ms. Rivlin served as a research assistant and teaching assistant to Dean Eyal Zamir in contract law and as a research assistant to Professor Israel Gilead in tort law. Upon graduation, Ms. Rivlin worked for a year as a law clerk at the Supreme Court Division: Constitutional and Administrative Affairs of the Israeli State Attorney Office in Jerusalem. As a law clerk, Ms. Rivlin conducted legal research and wrote drafts in response to petitions in the areas of constitutional law, administrative law and public international law. After the conclusion of her clerkship, Ms. Rivlin was admitted on June 2006 to the Israeli Bar.

  

 

   

Guy Fiti Sinclair
New Zealand and Samoa

Guy Fiti Sinclair is a J.S.D. candidate at the New York University School of Law.  He has over 10 years experience as a corporate commercial lawyer in leading US, English and Australasian firms; most recently he was Corporate Counsel New Zealand for the largest publicly listed Australasian food company.  He is a Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand, and has been admitted to practice as a Solicitor in England and Wales.

Guy's principal area of interest is public international law.  His thesis, supervised by Professor Jose E. Alvarez, will examine the expansion of the powers of international organizations through processes of informal reform.  Guy's publications include articles in Volume 8 (May 2007) of the Melbourne International Law Journal and Volume 14 (March 2008) of the ILSA Journal of International and Comparative Law, as well as articles in New Zealand and English law journals.

Guy has B.A., LL.B. (Hons.) and LL.M. (First Class Hons.) degrees from the University of Auckland.  He is the recipient of several scholarships and prizes, including the Fowlds Memorial Prize (awarded to the most distinguished Masters student at the University of Auckland Faculty of Law), the Gordon Watson Scholarship and the Spencer Mason Travelling Scholarship in Law.  Guy is a Fulbright scholar.

 

  Leonid Sirota
Canada

Leonid is a J.S.D. student from Canada. After graduating with a B.C.L./LL.B. (Hons.) from McGill University’s Faculty of Law in 2009, he clerked for Justice Danièle Tremblay-Lamer of the Federal Court of Canada. He graduated with an LL.M. in Legal Theory from the NYU School of Law in 2011. He is interested in constitutional law, legal theory, and political philosophy. His J.S.D. research project will explore the legitimacy of the judicial role in the creation of law in democratic polities.
 

Prince Neto DCB Waite
Jamaica

Neto is a J.S.D. Candidate from Jamaica. He received his LL.B. from the University of the West Indies in 2007, before which he earned his B.Sc. in International Relations (Major), Political Science, African & African Diaspora Studies (Minors) in 2003 also from the University of the West Indies.  In 2009 he was awarded an LL.M. from Harvard Law School. In the University of the West Indies LL.B. program his research paper was done under the supervision of Professor Alina Kaczorowska and at Harvard Law School under the supervision of Professor Emeritus Henry J. Steiner. In 2008 he was a participant of the 35th External Session of the Hague Academy of International Law.

Neto was a Lecturer in Public International Law at the University of the West Indies in 2010-2011. He was an Assistant to an Arbitral Tribunal of the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes; and, in 2009 he was an intern at the International Criminal Court in the Appeals Chamber with Judge Erkki Kourula.

His J.S.D. research, under the supervision of the Professor Benedict Kingsbury, will critically assess due diligence at international law; he will also explore the application of due diligence obligations to international organisations.

J.S.D. Proposal of Study: A Critical Assessment of the Concept of Due Diligence in International Law

 

Emily Kidd White
Canada

Emily is a J.S.D. candidate from Canada, working under the supervision of Professor Jeremy Waldron.  In 2006, she earned her LL.B. at Queen’s Law School (Dean’s Honour List) after having previously graduated from Queen’s University with a first-class B.A.(H) degree in Politics and Philosophy.  After two years of litigation practice at a national law firm in Toronto, Emily entered the International Legal Studies LL.M. program at New York University School of Law.  She graduated from this program in 2009 with the Jerome Lipper Prize for distinction.

From 2009-2011, Emily held a research fellowship at the Jean Monnet Center for Regional and International Economic Law and Justice at New York University School of Law.  During this time, Emily served as the Associate Editor of the European Journal of International Law and also as the teaching assistant for the Institute for International Law and Justice Colloquium (Spring 2010).

Emily’s areas of interest are in legal theory, international law and human rights.  Her J.S.D. project focuses on the growing prominence of the concept of dignity in human rights jurisprudence since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Drawing on her specific interest in virtue theory, Emily will use her time at NYU to examine the hypothesis: does the concept of human dignity invoke emotions in ways that human rights does not? 

 

 

Moran Yahav
Israel

Moran is a J.S.D candidate from Israel with research interests in legal and political philosophy and theory of international law. Her dissertation, supervised by Professor Liam Murphy, aims to develop an institutional theory of law in the province of general jurisprudence, which will be examined vis-à-vis the case of international law. 

Moran completed her LL.M. in Legal Theory at NYU as a Hans Kelsen Scholar (2010), with an LL.M. thesis in legal philosophy. She received her LL.B., magna cum laude, from Tel Aviv University (2007), where she served as a teaching and research assistant in various fields, as an assistant editor of the journal Theoretical Inquiries in Law, and as the president of the Law School Student Senate. She was also chosen to study a semester abroad at the University of Michigan, where she focused on connections between law, literature and history. Upon graduation and after interning with the litigation group of one of Israel's leading law firms, Moran clerked for the Honorable Justice Esther Hayut of the Supreme Court of Israel. Later she served as the legal advisor to the Public Commission to Examine the Maritime Incident of 31 May 2010, chaired by Justice (ret.) Jacob Turkel. She is a member of the Israeli bar since 2009.

 

Anqi Zhang
People’s Republic of China

Anqi Zhang is a J.S.D student from China, specializing in antitrust and competition law. She received her LL.B in Civil, Commercial and Economic Law from China University of Political Science and Law  (07), and LL.M in Intellectual Property Law from Peking University (09). She got her second LL.M in Antitrust and Competition Law in Trade Regulation Program at New York University School of Law with Donald L. Brown Memorial Scholarship (2010). She is a member of Chinese Bar and New York Bar.

Anqi Zhang’s research interest is competition law and intellectual property law.  She Joined a National Research Project sponsored by China’s Ministry of Justice entitled “Regulation on Unfair Competition under Internet Technical Circumstances.” And published a paper on Exploration on unfair competition of Paid Search Engine Listings. Her J.S.D. research project will explore the intersection between China’s industry policies and competition policy.

 

Nourit Zimerman
Israel

Nourit Zimerman received a Bachelor Degree in Law and the Humanities, magna cum laude, from the Hebrew University, Israel, in 2003. While attending the Hebrew University, Ms. Zimerman was involved in human rights activities in several NGOs, including the Association for Civil Rights. She worked in the Tel Aviv University Center of Clinical Studies, as a program manager for the Street Law program in which law students teach law to at-risk youth.

After graduating she became a clerk for Justice Ayala Procaccia of the Israeli Supreme Court. After her admission to the Israeli Bar, she continued working in the Supreme Court as Justice Procaccia's legal assistant, until she joined the NYU School of Law LL.M. program. Currently, Ms. Zimerman is a J.S.D. candidate. Her research areas include procedural theory, lawyering theory and law and society. Her dissertation will address the role of the litigant in the civil procedure. Ms. Zimerman is a Fulbright Scholar.

Patricia Palacios Zuloaga
Chile

Ms. Palacios Zuloaga is a J.S.D. student from Santiago, Chile, whose legal interests fall in the area of international human rights law.  She received her law degree from the University of Chile and her LL.M. degree from Harvard Law School where she received a Stoffel Scholarship. 

She is a member of the faculty at the University of Chile’s Law School where she teaches on matters such as discrimination and women’s rights in international law and where she also works as a researcher for the University’s Human Rights Center (HRC).  Through the HRC she has published two books in Spanish: one on discrimination case law in the UN human rights system and another on the gendered interpretations of human rights treaties.  Her LLM paper entitled “The Path to Gender Justice in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights” won the Audre Rapoport Prize for Scholarship on the Human Rights of Women awarded by the Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice at the University of Texas School of Law.  The paper will shortly be published in the Texas Journal of Women and the Law.

Her dissertation will examine the obstacles to the transmission of international human rights law between supranational human rights protection organs.

 

 

 

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