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This cash prize is awarded to the rising Columbia College senior majoring in Human Rights who submits the best proposal for a summer or term-time human rights internship, and is intended to be used to help defray the expenses of the internship.
This prize is awarded annually to the Columbia College student majoring in human rights who has the highest grade point average and a superior record of academic achievement in Human Rights.
This cash prize is awarded to the rising Columbia College senior majoring in human rights who submits the best proposal for a summer or term-time human rights internship, and is intended to be used to help defray the expenses of the internship. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis throughout the year, with priority admission dates of December 1 for Spring term submissions, and April 1 for Summer submissions. Alternatively, for general research or internship funding, students should review ISHR's undergraduate financial resources page. Please apply here: APPLICATION: Myra Kraft Human Rights Prize
Grace Bickers graduated with honors from Columbia College in 2014, majoring in Human Rights with a concentration in Middle Eastern Studies. Her undergraduate thesis, an abridged version of which won the 2016 Ignacio Martín-Baró Human Rights Essay Competition at the Pozen Family Center for Human Rights (University of Chicago), analyzed the lack of accountability mechanisms within the economic, social, and cultural human rights regime, arguing that an over reliance on state-based checks on power and state-granted rights leaves people without meaningful modes of legally accessing universal rights. As her research focused in particular on the case of Tajikistan, she traveled there to live and teach after receiving her B.A. While at Columbia, Grace worked for two years as a research assistant with the Presbyterian Ministry at the United Nations.
After obtaining an M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Chicago, Grace is back at Columbia, where she is now a Ph.D. student in the Department of Religion studying medieval Islamic history.
Erica Bower graduated magna cum laude from Columbia College Class of 2014, with dual majors in Human Rights and Sustainable Development. Her research interests lay at the intersection of these disciplines -- the human rights implications of climate change for people displaced on the frontlines. Building on field work conducted in the Nepali Himalayas while studying abroad during her Junior year, her Honors Thesis focused on the relationship between climate change impacts and human mobility patterns, and what legal and policy frameworks exist to protect the rights of these populations on the move.
Outside the classroom, she was a member of GreenBorough Sustainability Living Community, Consilience Journal of Sustainable Development, SEEJ (Students for Environmental and Economic Justice), Columbia University Photography Society, and a hiking leader with COOP (Columbia Outdoor Orientation Program).
Since graduation, she has continued work inspired by her undergraduate research interest in climate change and displacement, including research and policy roles for UN Agencies, NGOs and a government-led consultation process known as the Nansen Initiative. Most recently, she worked to advance policy, legal and practical solutions to protect the rights of people forced to flee their homes after disasters, as the Climate Change and Disaster Displacement Specialist at the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Geneva Headquarters. She also completed a Master of Science in Forced Migration Studies from Oxford University Department of International Development's Refugee Studies Centre.
The Myra Kraft Prize for Exceptional Practical Experience in Human Rights Advocacy was, in retrospect, the catalyst that has shaped her career trajectory ever since. Interning for the UNHCR in summer 2013 cemented her professional interests in addressing climate change impacts on displaced populations, helped her to build a network of actors in this field, and has indirectly led to every position she has held since.
