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The Miller Human Rights Award will support graduate and undergraduate human rights students who seek to deepen their experience through study abroad or volunteer work. The placement should provide substantive and thoughtful engagement, through a human rights lens, with communities experiencing socio-economic inequities, forms of discrimination, or other types of institutional or societal marginalization. Applicants with placements in the Global South are especially encouraged to apply, although the nature of the work and its potential for addressing a significant need in a marginalized community is prioritized over a specific location/country.
Selected students will engage in an opportunity abroad to enhance their human rights education or professional experience. This could entail an internship, volunteer work, or study abroad (study abroad is for undergraduate students only). Human Rights Majors and Concentrators currently enrolled in Columbia College or the School of General Studies, and HRSMA students are eligible to apply. Award recipients will receive a stipend in the amount of $5,000, intended to defray the costs associated with pursuing an experience abroad. Semester and summer opportunities are eligible for funding. Fellowship recipients are expected to write a brief report, discussing their experience and its impact on their academic studies or expected career trajectory in human rights. Recipients are also invited to write a blog post for ISHR’s RightsViews blog.
Steve Miller is the Chief Financial Officer of Warby Parker and serves on the Board of Ubuntu Pathways. Steve graduated from Columbia College in 1995 with a degree in Political Science. While at Columbia, Steve spent time in Johannesburg, South Africa and helped raise over $500K in support of local communities. Steve’s volunteer experience had a lasting impact on his commitment to social justice initiatives and he remains actively engaged with civil society in the country.
To apply, please complete this application, and email any questions to humanrightsed@columbia.edu. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis, with a priority admission date of December 1 for Spring term submissions and May 1 for Summer submissions. Alternatively, for general research or internship funding, students should review ISHR's graduate or undergraduate financial resources page.
Note: Disbursement of this award is contingent on compliance with Columbia University’s international travel policies and procedures.
Ruth Meschery-McCormack is a fourth-year student at Columbia College majoring in Human Rights and Latin American and Iberian Cultures. She is from a rural town in Northern California, and from the ages of 4 to 6 years old lived in Granada, Spain with her family while her mother was teaching for her Fulbright. These two experiences, and the Spanish language skills that she learned, inform her perspective as a student at the Institute for the Study of Human Rights, and within the educational and immigration legal service organizations where she has worked. As a recipient of the Miller Award, she was able to travel abroad with the School of International Training to Buenos Aires, Argentina. While based with a host family in the city, they also took trips to rural communities in Patagonia, the northern regions of Argentina, and into suburban cities, to learn about food insecurity, climate injustice, and indigenous land rights movements. During these trips, she was able to continue to connect the memories of her rural upbringing with her future as a student in Spanish-speaking countries. In New York, she brings her past experiences to the non-profit organization ARTE (Art Resistance Through Education), providing arts education programs to high school students throughout New York City. She also loves to draw and paint, walk through the city, visit museums, and even bartend a little. She is grateful for the support of the Miller Human Rights Award.
Claudia Sachs is a senior in the Joint Program between Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary studying human rights, sustainable development, and modern Jewish studies. She is honored to receive the Miller Human Rights Award in order to participate in a unique research and learning opportunity this summer: Environmental Humanities & Global Health in The Gambia, organized by the Columbia Global Collaboratory. For 10 weeks, she will be working remotely with the Gunjur Project, a sustainability and public health NGO in The Gambia, to prepare a project that furthers the NGO’s rights-based goals and mission. In August, she will travel to The Gambia with ten other students to learn more about the environmental, public health, and human rights challenges in The Gambia and collaborate with the Gunjur Project in person. This summer, Claudia will also research and learn about sustainability and human rights from a legal lens through her internship at Kirkland & Ellis LLP in the Pro Bono department. She extends her gratitude to the Miller Foundation for their generous support of human rights research and study.
