Margaret Satterthwaite ’99
Professor of Law
Faculty Director, Center for Human Rights and Global Justice
Director, Global Justice Clinic
Faculty Director, Robert and Helen Bernstein Institute for Human Rights
Margaret Satterthwaite’s research interests include economic and social rights, human rights and counterterrorism, and methodological innovation in human rights. Satterthwaite graduated magna cum laude from NYU School of Law in 1999 and served as a law clerk to Judge Betty B. Fletcher of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 1999-00 and to the judges of the International Court of Justice in 2001-02. She has worked for a variety of human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights First, and the Commission Nationale de Verité et de Justice (Haitian Truth and Justice Commission), and has authored or co-authored more than a dozen human rights reports. She has engaged in human rights work in places such as Guyana, Haiti, Nigeria, Northern Ireland, the United States, and Yemen. Satterthwaite has served as a human rights consultant and advising expert to UN agencies and special rapporteurs and has been a member of the boards of directors of several human rights organizations, including Amnesty International USA, the Global Initiative on Economic and Social Rights, and Digital Democracy. Satterthwaite is currently the Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers for the United Nation's Human Rights Council. She also serves as a member of the Africa Council to the ABA's Rule of Law Council.
Sukti Dhital
Executive Director
Sukti is the Executive Director of the Bernstein Institute for Human Rights at NYU Law. She also serves as a Supervising Attorney with the Global Justice Clinic, where she oversees legal empowerment projects spanning jailhouse lawyers and immigrant rights. Previously, Sukti was the Executive Director and Co-founder of Nazdeek, a legal empowerment organization that works closely with indigenous and Dalit women to advance human rights through a community-driven approach. Prior to Nazdeek, Sukti was the Director of the Reproductive Rights Unit at the Human Rights Law Network, India and assisted in securing landmark social and economic rights judgments. She has also worked at the American Civil Liberties Union’s Reproductive Freedom Project. Sukti currently serves as a Steering Committee member of the Legal Empowerment Fund, a member of the Grassroots Justice Network's Network Advisory Council and an Advisory Board member of the WIEGO Law Programme. Sukti received her JD from Northeastern University School of Law and BA from University of Michigan. She is a mother of 2 beautiful kiddos and a deep believer in community justice as the pathway to liberation.
Tyler Walton '18
Deputy Director
Tyler Walton is the Deputy Director at the Robert and Helen Bernstein Institute for Human Rights at NYU School of Law. He joined the Bernstein Institute as the inaugural Tuttleman Legal Empowerment Fellow. Tyler works on legal empowerment, researching and co-developing strategies with affected community members to access and exercise their rights and shift power paradigms back towards communities and individuals. He serves as the managing attorney for the Jailhouse Lawyer Initiative and a supervising attorney with the Global Justice Clinic. Prior to joining the Bernstein Institute, Tyler was a fellow at the Southern Africa Litigation Centre where he led the program on freedom of expression, working to combat closing civic spaces in southern Africa and address new human rights issues caused by the rise of the Internet and digital technologies. He also served two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Malawi developing participatory community health programs. Tyler received his BA from the University of Missouri and his JD from NYU School of Law, where he was a Root-Tilden-Kern Public Interest scholar.
S. Priya Morley '19
Director, Racial Justice Initiative, Bernstein Institute for Human Rights
Project Advisor, Global Justice Clinic
Before joining the Bernstein Institute, Priya was on the faculty at UCLA Law as Director of the International Human Rights Clinic and Racial Justice Policy Counsel at the Promise Institute for Human Rights, where she led academic, advocacy, and policy initiatives at the intersection of racial justice and critical approaches to human rights. She was affiliated with the Critical Race Studies and International and Comparative Law Programs at UCLA Law, as well as the UCLA Latin American Institute.
Priya was previously an Arthur Helton Global Human Rights Fellow at NYU Law, researching discrimination against Black African and Haitian migrant women in Mexico, and she supervised students in the Global Justice Clinic’s Caribbean Climate Justice Initiative, with which she continued to collaborate while at UCLA Law.
A Canadian attorney, Priya previously worked in employment law, public law, and human rights litigation at WeirFoulds LLP and clerked at the Divisional Court, Superior Court of Justice of Ontario. She also worked with the UN Team of Experts on Rule of Law and Sexual Violence in Conflict and several civil society organizations, including the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), Equality Effect, and Equitas International Centre for Human Rights Education.
Priya holds an LLM in International Legal Studies from NYU Law, law degrees from McGill University Faculty of Law, and a BA from the University of British Columbia. She is completing a PhD in Law at the Allard School of Law at UBC. Her research sits at the intersection of race, gender, and migration.
gabriela Piñeros Medina
Program Manager
gabriela is the Program Manager at the Bernstein Institute for Human Rights at NYU Law. They are also a former Immigrant Youth Accompaniment Aide at The Door, an organization that provides a wide range of free services to NYC-based youth. Prior to joining the Bernstein Institute, gabriela was an organizer with the Student Farmworker Alliance (SFA) where she worked with students and young people to further the goals of the Fair Food Program developed by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. Prior to SFA, gabriela volunteered at the Legal Empowerment and Advocacy Hub (LEAH) where she learned about the power in people being able to know, use, and shape the laws that affect them. While at LEAH, she had the opportunity to work on the Jailhouse Lawyers Initiative, a national project that aims to re-conceptualize the role of jailhouse lawyers as agents of empowerment. gabriela has also served as a Democracy Program Intern at the Brennan Center for Justice.
gabriela is an immigrant from Colombia and first-generation college student. They graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Florida where they earned a BA in Criminology and in Gender and Sexuality Studies.
Jhody Polk
Researcher and Jailhouse Lawyers Initiative founder
Jhody Polk is the founder of the Jailhouse Lawyers Initiative (JLI) and CEO of A Light In The Valley, LLC. She is the Pathways to Research and Advocacy Fellow at the Fortune Society and Center for Justice Innovation, and is the creator of the Legal Empowerment & Advocacy Hub (LEAH), an online space dedicated to people Knowing the Law. She is the recipient of the 2019 Peacebuilder of the Year Award, the 2020 Dr. Martin Luther King’s Jr. Legacy award and named a Soros Justice Fellow in 2018. She currently serves on the board of Namati.
Jhody is known for her work as a central Florida Organizer on Amendment 4, a campaign to restore voting rights to over 1.5 million Floridians with felony convictions. She is the formal Director of Community Justice at the River Phoenix Center for Peacebuilding and served as the Director of the Alachua County Reentry Coalition 2017-2020. Jhody is a rising Tarot Reader, Astrologer, and Energy Healer. She unapologetically lives for the liberation of Black People, Power, Peace , Human Rights, Participatory Action Research (PAR), Legal Empowerment, Community Peacebuilding and Justice For All.
Ben Polk
Director of the Transformative Justice Project
Ben Polk is the Director of the Transformative Justice Project and a Research Scholar at NYU Law School. Previously, Ben served as the Global Policy Director for the International Legal Foundation, a non-governmental organization that builds and promotes legal aid systems in conflict-affected countries including Afghanistan, Myanmar, Nepal, Palestine, and Tunisia. His prior experiences include serving as Justice Deputy for Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda L. Solis (formerly United States Secretary of Labor for President Barack Obama) and as a practicing legal aid lawyer, most recently managing a team of attorneys and paralegals providing wrap-around legal services to people experiencing or at-risk of homelessness. Ben has a J.D. from Harvard Law School and an M.P.P. from the Harvard Kennedy School, where he was elected president of the student government. Before graduate school, Ben was a management consultant for Bain & Co., based in London and working on projects in South Africa, and across Europe and the United States.
Katarina Sydow
Adjunct Professor of Clinical Law, External Legal Advisor to the Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers
Katarina Sydow is the Senior External Legal Advisor to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers and Bernstein Faculty Director, Professor Margaret Satterthwaite. She has a broad interest in international law and human rights issues. Katarina was previously Director of the Human Rights and Privatization Project at NYU’s Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, where her research focused on poverty and inequality, and the human rights impacts of commodifying essential services such as healthcare, water and education. She has also worked as a consultant for UN Women and the United Nations Development Programme, contributing to policy briefs concerning the Women, Peace and Security agenda and the Global Focal Point for the Rule of Law.
Katarina received her LLM in International Legal Studies from NYU, her Graduate Diploma in Law from City, University of London, and her BA from the University of Oxford. Before moving to the United States to complete her LLM at NYU, Katarina worked as a barrister in the UK for eight years, where she was ranked in Legal 500 and Chambers and Partners.
Aloysia Sonnet
Legal Fellow, External Legal Advisor to the Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers
Aloysia Sonnet is the Junior External Legal Advisor to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers and Bernstein Faculty Director, Professor Margaret Satterthwaite. Originally specializing in business law, she shifted her expertise to international law and human rights. Aloysia has worked with a range of organizations, including the European commission and a non-profit focused on advocating for human rights in the Middle Eastern region. With a strong interest in advancing economic and social rights, she is also engaged with International Rights Advocates, a U.S.-based non-profit organization dedicated to holding corporations accountable for human rights and environmental violations through strategic litigation and advocacy.
Aloysia received her LLM in International Legal Studies from NYU, her LLM in International Business law from Université Paris II Panthéon- Assas and her Bachelor and Master’s degrees in law from the Université Libre de Bruxelles.
Darren Breeden
Community Justice Fellow
Darren Breeden is Community Justice Fellow at NYU’s Jailhouse Lawyers Initiative (JLI) located within the Bernstein Institute for Human Rights. Breeden is a graduate of Bard College, received his paralegal certification in 1994, and from Columbia University in 2022. He is a staunch advocate for Legal Empowerment; specifically, the right of former jailhouse lawyers to contribute to oppressed communities by utilizing legal skills in community based justice hubs.
Christine Eldabh
Legal Fellow
Christine ElDabh is a fellow with the Jailhouse Lawyers Initiative at the Bernstein Institute for Human Rights. She graduated from NYU School of Law in 2023 where she was a student advocate in the Global Justice Clinic and the Civil Rights in the Criminal Legal System, a fellow with the Center on Race, Inequality & the Law, a research assistant to Professor Deborah Archer, and a volunteer with the Parole Advocacy Project. Before law school, Christine was a program officer at the Leitner Center for International Law and Justice where she worked on anti-carceral and gender justice advocacy in the US and Kenya. She received her BA from the University of Virginia.
Sophia Opferman
Membership Coordinator
After graduating Magna Cum Laude from NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study in May 2024, Sophia joined the Jailhouse Lawyers Initiative full-time as the inaugural Membership Coordinator. During her undergraduate career, Sophia designed her own major, studying the intersections of Human Rights, Postcolonialism, and Law, with a focus on the tensions between law as a tool for mass injustice and the potential for law as an avenue for systemic change. Outside of the classroom, Sophia’s academic interests have translated into her work with incarcerated and formerly incarcerated communities, where she feels the tensions of the law are most evident. She was a member of the 2022 Cohort of the Gallatin Fellowship on Human Rights, where she worked as a community organizer with the Urban Justice Center’s Freedom Agenda Project, advocating for the decarceration of New York City and the closure of Riker’s Island. In 2023, she received the Gallatin Dean’s Award for Summer Research and an NYU Changemaker Fellowship, during which she worked as an intern with the Jailhouse Lawyers Initiative, researching legal empowerment as a tangible pathway toward abolition. She is also a volunteer writer with the Remedy Project, where she assists incarcerated people in Federal Prisons in filing Administrative Remedies. Sophia plans to attend law school in hopes of working for the rights of justice-impacted communities, informed by the lessons and values of legal empowerment.
Melania Chiponda
Participatory Action Researcher
Melania Chiponda is an ecofeminist, popular educator, and participatory action researcher who believes in centering people’s lived experiences and realities in the creation of knowledge. To Melania, community empowerment and knowledge creation is a collective process that shifts power from mainstream knowledge systems and institutions to the people. Her research approach is embedded in participatory action approaches that bring out grassroots people's experiences, stories and struggles, and is oriented towards evidence- based advocacy and people-driven reforms that go beyond short-term reformism. The research contributes towards longer-term structural changes that are required to ensure economic and development justice. Melania has a PHd in Development Studies with a MSc in Development Studies.