Fellows

Milena Adamczewska, born in Gdańsk (Poland) is an experience-seeker with a strong need to take action. She has graduated with a law degree from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań and is about to finish LLM in International Law and Human Right at the University of Tilburg. In between, she volunteered in South Africa, worked and traveled in Australia, advocated for a just world with several NGOs and tried herself as an entrepreneur in the field of marketing. Her academic and activist interests has been mainly focused on gender equality and women's rights from legal, political and social perspective, both on the local and global level. In her free time, Milena writes - for her travel blog, for other websites and "for the drawer". She shares this way her ideas and asks questions, on the topics of culture, societies and global challenges that the world is facing nowadays.

Onur Aksu was born and raised in Recklinghausen, Germany, he is now studying in my second semester Law at the University of Cologne and participating in the German-Turkish Bachelor program Law, at the same time. With this bilingual program, he is aiming to gain several experiences in my country of origin. Growing up with to different cultures 

He has always been aware of my responsibility as a mediator between both of my cultures and communities. Therefore, he is involved in a lot of projects encouraging interreligious and intercultural dialogue. Currently, he is working on an event that will bring together Muslim and Christian students for an open discourse, during the Islamic fasting month. He enjoys reading books and playing the piano. After graduating from university, he is striving to become a diplomat or work as an advisor on human rights issues in an international organization.

Daisy Astorga Gonzalez is the proud daughter of a single mother who is a Mexican immigrant. Her goal is to graduate from college and become an immigration lawyer, so she can fight against the discrimination she has witnessed her mother and her community endure. She attended the Smith College; she's a rising senior, majoring in sociology. She is currently a legal intern at the Center for New Americans; it helps immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees. She is also a board member and mentor at Students With Ambition Go To College (SWAG To College). SWAG To College pairs up low-income high school students with college students to help them to get to college. She is in the processing of releasing her new scholarship as well. Lastly, she considers herself a proud New Mexican, Mexican-American, Latina, and woman.

Anna Bachan was raised as a first-generation American in Minneapolis by Czech and Slovak parents. A recent graduate from New York University, she majored in International Politics, Human Rights and Development, studying abroad in Paris for a full academic year. At NYU she wrote her senior thesis analyzing female labor migration from West Africa to Europe and its implications for socioeconomic development, which was published in NYU’s Journal of Politics and International Affairs. Anna has followed her passion for human rights and advocacy through internships at the Human Rights Foundation and the Oslo Freedom Forum and by mentoring immigrant women and teens in New York. For the past year, she has worked in Abomey-Calavi, Benin as a Princeton in Africa fellow at the African School of Economics. At ASE, she has mentored African pre-doctorate students and pursued research projects on girl’s education, school-related gender based violence, climate change, and seasonal migration.

Meredith Blake is the Program Coordinator for the Advanced Training Program on Humanitarian Action (ATHA) at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. In this role she manages ATHA’s communications and dissemination strategy, while serving as executive producer and co-host of ATHA’s monthly Humanitarian Assistance podcast. She is the project lead for ATHA's Gender and Humanitarian Response policy project and is currently conducting research on child protection and gender challenges in the Middle East, specifically as they pertain to the integration of Syrian refugees. Before joining ATHA, Meredith worked for the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum at Harvard University's Institute of Politics, coordinating diplomatic visits for heads of state and thought leaders from the government, business, and media industries and in the communications department of the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. She holds a BA in Government and International Relations.

Rozanna Bogacz, born and currently living in Kraków, graduated from Jagiellonian University with bachelor's degree of culture studies, specialization in comparative studies of civilizations and master's degree of cognitive science. During her studies she participated in exchanges at University of Valencia and Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. At this time Rozanna got involved in polish brafitting community, initially a virtual consumer group that quickly developed into powerful body positivity feminist movement, even though not self identifying as such. She was also briefly taking part in activity of Institute of Citizenship Thought Fundacja Stańczyka and local LGBT groups. She is hoping that participation in HIA will help her to extend her involvement, possibly info full time job that would let her utilize for social purposes digital marketing skills obtained at recent workplaces.

Dominika Burakiewicz graduated with Honors in International Managerial Economics at the University of Gdańsk, Poland. She was Erasmus scholarship recipient studied at the University Lumière Lyon 2 in France. Her project management skills were, among others, developed at the European Parliament in Brussels while coordinating events, e.g. „Malbork - the Common Heritage” and the programme of Cuban political dissident. Currently Dominika is the President of Rotaract Club in Tricity, Poland, where she manages young team of enthusiasts in wide range of projects like registration of the bone marrow donors, international exchange initiatives, business workshops with outstanding leaders, dance classes for disabled children, helping abandoned animals, arrangement of donation actions for educational centers and families in need. She gives speeches to students to encourage them to follow their dreams by sharing her experience, talking about her passions, and asserting personal responsibility for success. Her hobbies are reading, scuba diving and kitesurfing.

Małgorzata Galińska, student at the Institute of Applied Polish Studies at the University of Warsaw, who investigates hateful language used while talking about refugees and migrants. She is a Polish teacher for foreigners, who is interested in international migration policies and defending migrants rights. She volunteered at a local refugees centre and helped organizing different forms of support for foreigners living in Poland at Polskie Forum Migracyjne. As a Polish Youth Delegate for the 32nd session of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe she advocated for appropiate inclusion strategies at a local level. In 2017 she attended IOM Summer School on Migration and plans to deepen her knowledgle on migration during master studies. She is passionate about vegan cooking and urban gardening. She recently adopted a shelter dog.

Born at the seaside of Poland and raised in the city of Warsaw, Ignacy "Iggy" Hryniewicz is a student of School of Ideas, faculty combining design thinking with social and cultural innovation. He previously studied New Media and Marketing&Management but after an eye-opening community service in India his deep need for raising awareness and creating social change emerged. Since then Iggy is co-creating a project Synergy Collective, dedicated to culture animation, fundraising and bringing important issues like equal human rights, refugee crisis or hate speech into the spotlight. Since early 2017, Synergy successfully organized 5 differently themed events (1 in Berlin), which hosted few thousand people and gathered more than 22.000 złoty for charity. Currently, he's preparing the biggest event to date with the Academy of Fine Arts, which will be dedicated to ecology and protecting the environment and will take place in Botanical Garden, and a collaboration with OFF Festival 2018.

Born in Zaporizhzhia (Ukraine), Oleksandra Kovalenko moved to the capital to study Law at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. During her studies, she participated in the couple of moot court competitions on human rights and international law, volunteering and governance projects. Oleksandra completed her Masters in the Interdisciplinary European Studies at the College of Europe in Natolin, Warsaw. Last autumn she went for an internship at the Parliament of Canada, where she deepened her interest in the advocacy of minorities' rights. Afterwards she started working at the International Organization for Migration in Kyiv. Oleksandra plans to continue her human rights studies, write, create and make projects happen.

Kamil Kuhr is a PhD student at SWPS University of Social Sciences in Warsaw. His dissertation will concern the housing policy for refugees in Europe. Currently he cooperates with one of the reception centers in Warsaw where he teaches refugee children. Moreover, he helps refugee families to find accommodation in Warsaw and smoothly move to a new flat. His scientific interests also include gender studies. It led him to take up the position of the president of MyGender Research Club at his university. His aim is to bring all his fields of expertise together by organizing anti-discrimination workshops for the refugee community.

Kateryna Kyrychenko was born in Ukraine, Kiev. Due to his parents, she started learning English when I was 3 years old, and French when she was 5. Later she also studied Latin, Lithuanian, German and Spanish. In 2011 she entered Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv to study Law. In 2017 she finished her Master's programme in Human Rights. It was a double-diploma programme between two universities - Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (Ukraine) and Mykolas Romeris University (Lithuania). During these studies she also spent 1 semester in Lyon, France, through Erasmus+ mobility program. After that she decided to devote some time to volunteering: she went to Vietnam for 6 months to participate in an educational project. She was teaching English to children in small towns in Vietnam. Kate is currently back in Ukraine, starting her e-commerce business and also participating in social initiatives and volunteer projects which concern her spheres of interest.

May Lim graduated from the University of Washington in 2016 with bachelor's degrees in Political Science and Psychology. She spent her junior year studying on exchange at University College Utrecht in the Netherlands. Now living in Pasadena, CA, May has worked for local elected officials in both Seattle and LA. She is interested in criminal justice policy, having worked extensively in prison advocacy around the issues of education and immigration. Aside from her prison advocacy work, May has had community experience organizing in the API community, teaching English and citizenship courses for new immigrants, and volunteering as a phone worker at a crisis call center. In her free time, May enjoys traveling, reading, and eating McDonald's.

Born and raised an Indianapolis-Hoosier at heart, Bethanie Martin is a recent graduate from Ball State University with a Bachelors of Art in Architecture, and is soon to complete her studies at Lawrence Technological University with a dual Masters in Architecture and Masters in Urban Design. It was during her time at Ball State that she became interested in understanding the impact of architecture on issues of social and racial justice and how designers play a role in providing services to those architecture and urban environments often leave behind. She has thus pursued such opportunities in neighborhood engagement, community activism, and place-based design while living, working and studying in Detroit, Michigan over the last two years. In her spare time, she enjoys supporting local artists, traveling and experiencing cities from the perspective of local residents, and volunteering for several non-profit initiatives.

Kenny Martin is a recent graduate of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, where he majored in English and music, and minored in history, chemistry, and Spanish. At SMU, Kenny was a member of the Ballroom Dance Team (his favorite dance is the foxtrot) and Editor-in-Chief of Hilltopics, SMU’s premier arts and opinion magazine. As a pianist, he was a regular performer on the Meadows School of the Arts stage, and a passionate advocate for new music. Recently, Kenny worked as a writer with the criminal justice initiative Buried Alive, which advocates for individuals sentenced to life without parole for first-time drug offenses. He hopes to use his musical and literary talents to advocate for mutual understanding, with a special interest in LGBTQ+ advocacy. In his spare time, Kenny can be found fishing, obsessing over Spanish art (especially Velázquez), or drinking good wine with better friends.

Nawojka Mocek was born and raised in Poznań, Poland. After two years of studying law and French, she spent one year volunteering in France, Germany and Belgium, living together with young people from all over the world and experiencing the beauty of diversity. She was a member of the team preparing the 38th Taize European Youth Meeting in Valencia, Spain. She also worked as a volunteer with migrants from Subsaharian Africa in Morocco and with refugees in Skaramagas camp in Athens, Greece. Influenced by those experiences, she would like to focus on the issue of perceiving and welcoming refugees and migrants in Europe, especially in Poland. Currently she works for Young Life organization.

Larysa Panasyuk was born in Warsaw to Ukrainian parents. Later she moved to Olsztyn, where she participated in an international Erasmus+ project: "Remembrance - Totalitarianism in Europe and historical consciousness in European context". Larysa was actively engaged in a drama club throughout middle school and high school. She is currently pursuing BSc degree for Biological Sciences at the University of Warsaw. Larysa is interested in wide variety of subjects, such as science, art and politics. She fluently speaks Polish, Ukrainian, Russian and English.

Rena Pitsaki was born in Chios, Greece in 1993. She entered the University with a scholarship and completed her studies at the Department of History & Archaeology of the Aristotle University in Thessaloniki, Greece. During her studies she focused on Art History (semester at Università degli Studi di Firenze, Italy) and on Cultural Management (training at National University of Athens, Greece). She is now completing her postgraduate studies at the Department of Cultural Technology and Communication (M.Sc in Cultural Informatics & Museology) of the Aegean University. She is working within the last 3 years as a curatorial and administrative assistant at KatArt-e_Art&Technology Lab. She has also been involved voluntarily in many cultural, educational and research projects, in collaboration with museums and foundations, while she is working in the field of curating art exhibitions. She is engaged in issues of interdisciplinary artistic projects, which highlight social, political and theoretical discourses.

Chelsea Racelis is a fourth-year student in a five-year joint degree program at the University of Michigan, studying Business Administration and International Studies. She has spent the past four years in undergrad exploring the relationship between business and human rights, doing research in supply chain ethics and founding a peer-facilitated dialogue program on identity and diversity in her business school. For two years, she has co-organized the Black-Asian Coalition, a community very close to her heart. Chelsea will be applying for a Fulbright research grant to study the experiences of Filipina women in domestic work overseas and the legal protections available to them.

Born and raised in Warsaw, Ewa  Rodzik is a third year law student at University of Warsaw, with her academic interests including migrations and refugees law, international humanitarian law and labor law. Beginning as a volunteer guide in the Warsaw Uprising Museum, Ewa consistently widens her knowledge about human rights and ways to prevent its infringements, while giving free legal advice in the Foreigners and Refugees Department of the Legal Clinic established at the University. She gains practical and professional skills while involving in the activity of the academic organization called Student Human Rights Forum, taking part in organization of meetings with social activists and delivering speeches during nationwide human rights conferences. In her spare time, Ewa likes to learn about different cultures as well as languages and travel. After graduation she plans to pursue her professional career as a human rights lawyer.

Ioannis Styliandis born in Thessaloniki, Greece. He holds two Master degrees in the fields of 1) Theology and Culture (Aristotle University) and 2) Jewish Civilization (Heidelberg University). He has originally trained and educated as a teacher of religion and historian mainly in the area of cross-cultural education. Ioannis has studied and worked in Greece, Germany, Denmark, Israel, Finland and Sweden by acquiring academic and working experience in Education, Middle East studies, Interreligious dialogue and Holocaust education. He was a Bruno Schulz Fellow at Paideia-the European Institute for Jewish Studies in Sweden. Moreover, Ioannis has received scholarships, among others, from the State Scholarship Foundation (IKY), State of Israel and the Danish Agency for Universities and Internationalisation. He also worked as a volunteer at Diakonische Werk Heidelberg and Heinrich Böll Stiftung Thessaloniki.

Teddy (Trey) Wallace is a senior at Mississippi State University majoring in Industrial and Systems Engineering. A passionate humanitarian, Teddy studies analytics for healthcare applications--an interest he developed through his work with a large hospital in his home town. In addition to his technical interests, Teddy works as a humanitarian photographer, providing creative works for a multitude of nonprofit organizations throughout Sub Saharan Africa. After graduating, Teddy plans to achieve a masters in public health or healthcare administration and pursue a career in nonprofit management.

Larissa Weiss found her passion in human rights and social change during her studies in Germany. She participated twice in the National Model United Nations Conference in New York, took part as a teacher in the Model United Nations in Classroom Project in Germany and she completed her practical period at the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva. These experiences formed her strong interest in understanding root causes of human rights violations, especially in the Middle East and North Africa region. After obtaining her degree from university (LL.B.), she started her internship in the German Bundestag in the Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid Committee to be faced with current human rights concerns in Germany, such as racism and right-wing extremism. The Humanity in Action Fellowship further urges her to understand society and ultimately, to introduce social change in line with universal human rights.

Małgorzata Żurowska is a recent graduate of the American Studies Center, University of Warsaw. She also pursued studies in journalism and social communication and spent a semester abroad at the University of Birmingham, UK. Her research focuses on gender and race with strong interests in intersectionality, neo-colonialism as well as popular culture. Currently she is gaining experience in a business environment focused on innovation, working in a space that aims to bring together startups, entrepreneurs, changemakers and NGOs. In the nearest future she plans to develop those interests and work to become a facilitator for social change and social entrepreneurship.