CIHR Research Assistants

2022-2023

Jennifer Yang 

Jennifer Yang is a PhD student in Criminal Justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Her research interests include adverse childhood experiences, juvenile justice, and developmental life-course criminology. She holds a master’s degree in Criminology from Simon Fraser University. Currently, Jennifer works as a research consultant for the Vera Institute of Justice

Joseph Shiovitz 

Joseph Shiovitz is a graduate student earning an MPA in Public Policy at CUNY's John Jay College of Criminal Justice, where he also serves as a Research Assistant in the Department of Public Management. He holds a BA in Philosophy with a specialization in social and political issues, including perspectives from both eastern and western traditions. Together, these areas of study have shaped his interest in the influence of public policy on social conditions and norms, particularly in the pursuit of economic justice, equitable urban planning, and the preservation of human rights amid the emergence of new technologies. Joseph has also been an avid traveler abroad, and has a great interest in international affairs.

Elisa Voltarelli languas

Elisa Voltarelli Ianguas is a graduate student at John Jay College of Criminal Justice – CUNY working towards her MA in Human Rights, as well as a Research Assistant at the Center for International Human Rights and a Graduate Fellow at the Initiative for Gender Equity in the Public Sector. Brazilian attorney, born and raised in the State of São Paulo, Brazil, Elisa obtained her law degree from Faculdade de Direito de Franca (Franca School of Law – Franca, Brazil) in 2015. When in law school, she worked as a legal intern at Franca Law School’s Legal Aid Department and thereafter at the Court of Justice of the State of São Paulo. Upon graduating and earning her license to practice law, Elisa began her career as an autonomous attorney, focusing her practice on torts and family law counseling and litigation. She also worked as a Legal Aid attorney, enrolled in the agreement between the Brazilian Bar Association and the Public Defender’s Office of the State of São Paulo. Currently residing in New York, Elisa graduated from Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University in 2020 with an LLM degree in Comparative Legal Studies with a specialization in US Legal Practice. Subsequently, she worked as a legal assistant at Schulman Trial, PLLC, a civil rights and criminal law firm. She aspires to be a human rights attorney and intends to pursue a career in Academia as well. Her research interests include how legislation and public policies could address reproductive rights, human trafficking, violence against women in politics, and gender inequality in general.

2021-2022

Julia Bolotovsky

Julia Bolotovsky is an undergraduate student at John Jay College majoring in International Criminal Justice. She is also part of the Honors program and is the treasurer of International Criminal Justice Club at John Jay. Her research interests include the intersection between governance and human rights, along with criminal justice reform. She hopes to work in Central or South America to address human rights issues through policy reform and advocacy. Julia is dedicated to working towards the overall goal of equity and hopes to bring attention to international issues that often go ignored.

Gabriella Gardziola

Gabriella Gardziola graduated from Loyola University Chicago this last spring semester with a degree in History and International Studies with a focus in social justice and law, and a minor in international studies. Her interest in history and legal studies stemmed from seeing Les Miserables when she was younger. Her interest in international studies came from travelling she did with organizations, tae kwon do teams and competition, and her time at university. She is going to be enrolled in the Master of International Crime and Justice program at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Fall 2021.

João Victor Gianecchini

João is an undergraduate Law student at the University of São Paulo/Brazil and a research fellow from the São Paulo Research Support Foundation (FAPESP). João is passionate about the business and human rights field and is also a member of the USP Business & Human Rights Working Group, an organization destined to develop the discussions involving B&HR issues in Brazil and broadly in Latin America. He undertakes research on criminal law and business and human rights issues with a focus on modern slavery and human trafficking as human rights abusive exploitation practices developed within global value chains. He also explores the interconnections between modern slavery in Brazil and other crimes and human rights offences, mainly its connections with the Amazon deforestation and climate change. He hopes that through research focused on evidence-based strategies towards human rights issues overcoming it might be possible to change the current scenario marked by abusive exploitation of the most vulnerable. He also hopes to help building strategies for overcoming the human rights challenges of this century.

Eva Navon

Eva grew up in New York City and earned a Bachelor's Degree in Cultural Studies in the English Department at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, where she also enjoyed learning about the similarities and differences in policy and society between the United States and Canada.  She is in her second year as a graduate student in the International Crime and Justice program at John Jay, and is currently serving as Student Representative for her cohort. Her interests include women's and children's rights and transnational gender and sexual violence. Her goal is to be a scholar who works to promote justice.

Joie Ning

Joie Ning is a sophomore in the Macaulay Honors program at John Jay College with the intent of studying International Criminal Justice and double minoring in Spanish and Gender Studies. Her interests largely revolve around foreign cultures and languages and the manner by which these cultures shape sociopolitical and nationalist thought. She is also very interested in understanding the way intersectionality of identities affects one’s experience of trauma; as such, she hopes to study the experience of LGBTQ+ communities in countries with widespread rejection of queerness, either due to social or religious reasons, and the ways in which we may resolve the human rights violations that occur as a result.

Arlinda Xhuveli

Arlinda Xhuveli was born and raised in Albania, where she finished some college in the Law and Criminal Justice field. Recently she completed summer school on Transnational Organized Crime from European Consortium for Political Research ECPR/SGOC. She is graduated from the Master in International Crime and Justice program with an Advanced Certificate in Transnational Organized Crime from John Jay College of Criminal Justice in May 2021. She posses Bachelor’s degree also from John Jay College with a major in Criminal Justice and a minor in Political Science. In her last semester of the MA program, she was involved in a Capstone project researching countries with alternatives to incarceration for persons with substance use disorders with other team members as part of a U.S. State Department Diplomacy Lab project. She was also a Research Assistant for contentious food politics in state development, state legitimacy, and state welfare. Arlinda also was a Trainee in the Global Diplomacy Initiative program at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research. Her significant interests are anti-corruption, counter-terrorism, illicit financing, money laundering, human trafficking, smuggling, governance, peace and security and diplomacy, peacemaking and conflict resolution, and multilateral diplomacy. Recently, she is volunteering to mentor in a child advocacy center to help the youth who have been trafficked or sexually exploited.

2020-2021

Timothy Botros

Timothy is a graduate student entering his final semester at CUNY John Jay College’s International Crime and Justice master’s program with an Advanced Certificate in Transnational Organized Crime. He has an interest in anti-corruption, counter-terorrism, and illicit financing. After graduating from the University of Maryland with a bachelor’s in International Relations in 2018, he served for a year at John Jay College as both a College Assistant for the Office of the President’s External Affairs team as well as a student representative on the Committee on Graduate Students while enrolled. Recently, Timothy has researched human rights issues pertaining to foreign aid allocation as well as state-sponsored terrorism. His capstone project this semester involves researching countries’ alternatives to incarceration for persons with substance use disorders with peers as part of a U.S. State Department Diplomacy Lab project. He is also assisting with a terrorism risk-factor interrator reliablity dissertation project.

Brianna Rivers

Brianna Rivers is a senior graduate student at John Jay College. As an International Crime and Justice major, her research interests are human rights, alternatives to incarceration, and comparative criminal justice. She is also passionate about criminal justice reform. Brianna graduated from SUNY Brockport with a bachelor’s in criminal justice and received Summa Cum Laude. She is an activist who hopes to become involved in criminal justice reform by promoting social justice, elimination of bias, and overall human rights.

2019-2020

Ray Hilker

Currently a senior, Raymond Hilker has been on the Dean's list the past two years at John Jay. As an International Criminal Justice major, he has a particular interest in areas of research involving nuclear and chemical weapons proliferation, as well as preventative criminal justice policies for children and other vulnerable groups. Raymond also has work published in John Jay's Finest relating to these interests and hopes to continue researching and writing to create positive policy change in the future.

Efim Galkin

Efim Galkin is a graduate student in the International Crime and Justice Program, with an interest in international security, anti-corruption, and the intersection of international sanctions, anti-money laundering, and counter-terrorism financing measures with human rights. After graduating from Hunter College, Efim spent eight years working as an accountant and auditor for an international corporate group based in the United States and Switzerland. He has an International Diploma in Governance, Risk, and Compliance from ICA, as well as certificates in AML and KYC CDD from ACAMS.

2018-2019

Amid Alhyani

Amid Alhyani is a third semester graduate student at John Jay college, majoring in International crime and justice. In the summer of 2017 he traveled to Sanna, Yemen and interned for the Sanna center for strategic studies, where he helped in preparing reports on geo-politics of the Middle East. Recently Amid completed a course in global diplomacy at the United Nations, where he received a certificate and wrote a research paper on the violation of international humanitarian law in Yemen, due to be published this year. His interests are human rights in the Middle East and anti money laundering.

Po-Ying (Janice) Chung

Po-Ying Chung is her full name, but many know her as Janice. She is a transfer senior majoring in Political Science and minoring in Human Rights. She finished her last three school years on the Dean's List. Janice has a passion for human rights, especially children's rights. She has traveled to different parts of Asia under Habitat with Humanity to restore living conditions for locals. In China, a volunteer group was able to provide supplies for elementary students. In Vietnam and Thailand, they were able to refurbish playgrounds and pavements for children. In 2016, Janice created a volunteer event with Hunger Free America, a non-profit group with a goal to end domestic hunger, to assist qualified people to sign-up for Food Stamps. In 2017, she interned at New York County Family Court under the office of legal affairs. In addition, she assisted attorneys and paralegals with a goal to ensure that custodial parents may have the financial support and medical insurance for their children by locating parents. At John Jay, she is currently part of the SASP program as a transfer peer success coach.

Lorena Villavicencio

Lorena Villavicencio recently graduated in 2018 and studied Forensic Psychology and International Criminal Justice. Throughout her undergraduate career, she focused her studies on criminal behavior and international crimes. As an honor student, she developed her own research project about understanding gang membership using a new method in the field. As a result of her internship with CUNY Service Corps, her passion for human rights was enforced, specifically for immigrants, women and, refugees. Right now, she works for a state-funded program that empower the immigrant community in Brooklyn by providing resources such as free immigration services, legal services, and English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) classes. She would like to start a career in an international or local nonprofit organization that focuses on human rights.

Musabika Nabiha

Musabika Nabiha is a Macaulay Honors College student and a sophomore at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.  She is the secretary of John Jay's Muslim Students Association. She is passionate about anti-war and anti-imperialism work. For the past year, she has worked in various ways with Peace Action New York State, a grassroots anti-militarism organization. She is also helping to organize a campus war divestment campaign in conjunction with various anti-war groups.

Amina Majeed

Amina Majeed is a graduating senior majoring in International Criminal Justice. She served as the International Criminal Justice Club President for the 2017-2018 semester. She is currently the Friends of the Earth Organizing Fellow for the state of New York. Amina is a member of the European Society of Criminology. She is an avid student with a wide array of interests ranging from environmental justice to crimes against women and children.

Dillon Epperson

Dillon Epperson is a passionate advocate for alternatives to incarceration and seeks to further understand this matter on an international scale. He is a member of the Prisoner Reentry Institute (PRI) and participated in the Prison-to-College Pipeline initiative. As an international studies major, Dillon was active in the United Nations Student Associate (UNSA) for two years; each year ModelUN awarded his Position Papers for his research. He is a womanist/feminist who served as a Gener Justice Advocate under the Women's Center for Gender Justice. He also engaged in research related to LGBTQ justice, incarceration, and international conflicts as a Mcnair Scholar and seeks to obtain his Ph.D. around these human rights violations. He sees education as power and continues to advocate for students of color through his service in the Urban Male Initiative.

2017-2018

Remy Linback

Remy Linback is currently a senior at Sarah Lawrence College, studying political science. Having worked with the Center for International Human Rights last year, Remy previously participated in the Center’s Diplomacy Lab Project in coordination with the US State Department. She is the editor-in-chief and a founding member of the Sarah Lawrence Political Review, a student-run journal covering recent events in global politics. She has also worked with the Sarah Lawrence Humanitarian Watch, an organization aiming to educate students about human rights issues around the world.

Perel Danese

Perel Danese is a graduating senior at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and is pursuing a  major in International Criminal Justice. As an ICJ student, she is passionate about international relations, international human rights, and global development. She finished the last three school years on the Dean's List. She is an active participant in school life including clubs and CUNY Service Corps. Perel joined CIHR in August 2017 and is the webmaster for the organization.

Maarja Sau

Maarja worked with CIHR last year and graduated from the MA program Study of the Americas at City College in the summer of 2017. During the program, she organized the work of Human Rights Club and was awarded the QUEST Award for Leadership Scholarship and Community Service. She has finished her BA in her home country of Estonia and also obtained a Master of Sociology from Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Spain. Her research interests include immigration and human rights. She has also collaborated with the non-profit organization Historical Memory Project that focuses on preserving the memory of human rights crimes in Latin America, founded by Marcia Esparza, a professor at John Jay College.

Hanna Amodine

Hanna Amodine is currently a senior majoring in Political Science with a concentration in Comparative International Politics and Human Rights at John Jay. She is currently the Center’s weekly news contributor. Along with being an Honors Program Scholar, she is currently the President of the National Model United United Nations team and previously served as the Treasurer. Hanna is also a recipient of the Charles B. Benenson Scholarship, which honors students with excellent academic standing and interest in real estate. She has had a number of experiences, including interning with the Honorable Judge Carmen R. Velasquez, the Durst Organization and is currently at Rosenberg & Estis, P.C. She is looking forward to pursuing a Juris Doctor Degree with aspirations in advocating for housing justice.