Myra Kraft Awards

Ella Every-Wortman graduated from Columbia University in 2016 where they majored in Human Rights with a focus on Critical Race and Ethnicity Studies and and minored in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.  While at Columbia, Ella pursued their interest in restorative justice with a two-year long independent research project entitled "'Not to Forget but to Live': Reimagining Justice and Sexual Violence at the University,"  a project which takes up transformative justice as an alternative to current punitive systems of justice.  Centering intersectional feminist anti-violence theory and an anti-carceral lens, this work brings together justice literature with original focus group and interview research to ask given the complex ideological, material, and systemic investments that inform the dynamics of sexual violence on college campuses, what would transformative justice at Columbia University look like and how can we use it to deconstruct the boundaries of privilege and marginalization that are mutually constituted through interpersonal and systemic violence.  Ella was a core organizer for Columbia Prison Divest, a successful student-led campaign to divest Columbia University's endowment from the private prison industry, and also served as a Peer Advocate for Sexual Violence Response (SVR).

I am a 2017 graduate of Columbia College with double majors in Human Rights and Political Science. My research interests include legal solutions to sustained racial discrimination and inequality in the United States post-slavery, as well as accountability and historical memory regarding the Armenian Genocide. While in college I worked as a site coordinator for Columbia's Project for the Homeless, which staffed two midtown homeless shelters, and tutored GED preparation to juvenile and adult inmates at Rikers Island and the Metropolitan Correctional Center. I also interned at the New York Attorney General's Office and the US. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, where I am currently working as a paralegal. I received the Myra Kraft Prize for my internship at the San Francisco Superior Court, where I assisted a Brady-Pitchess commissioner in analyzing claims of police misconduct. This internship gave me valuable firsthand exposure to the legal system as well as helped me develop the skills to succeed in a "learn-by-doing" environment.

As a double major in Human Rights and Psychology, Brooke has long been interested in how and why conflicts develop as well as how to identify sustainable interventions that can help break cycles of violence. During her undergraduate career at Columbia, Brooke served as a Lead Activist for the Columbia Democrats as well as a Policy Director for the Columbia University Students for Human Rights, advocating successfully for the group's official establishment. Her work at The Fortune Society as part of a Kenneth Cole Community Engagement Fellowship enabled her to examine critically the criminal justice system in the United States while an internship at Doctors Without Borders during the Ebola crisis gave her a inside perspective on the complexity of international humanitarian aid work. After studying abroad in Dharamsala, India, Brooke wrote her senior human rights seminar paper on how the Tibetan Exile community understands and employs human rights rhetoric in their political and social struggle. Following graduation, Brooke completed service as a Peace Corps Community and Youth Development Volunteer in Armenia before undertaking an AmeriCorps Project Conserve position in her hometown of Brevard, North Carolina. In fall of 2018, Brooke will enter UMass Amherst's Psychology of Peace and Violence Program in pursuit of a doctoral degree in Social Psychology.

Anna Jessurun graduated magna cum laude from Columbia College in 2017 with a Bachelor of Arts in Human Rights and a concentration in Political Science. After graduating, Anna began her position as a Project Assistant with the Family Law Project at Sanctuary for Families, an organization that provides a range of services for survivors of domestic violence in New York City. As an undergraduate, Anna was a tour guide with the Undergraduate Recruitment Committee and interned with organizations such as the New York Civil Liberties Union, Hillary For America, and the Advocates for Human Rights. Her research interests include the intersection of reproductive rights and poverty and the impact of U.S. policy on sex trafficking on the international human rights arena. In April 2015, Anna was awarded the Myra Kraft prize and received funding for her summer internship with the New York City chapter of the National Organization for Women. As an Women's Rights intern with NOW-NYC, Anna aided the organization's mission to support women's rights legislation at the municipal and state level. One of her responsibilities included staffing the NOW-NYC Helpline and after analyzing the types of calls received and other data, Anna put together a report with suggestions to the NOW-NYC staff for improving its efficiency. Anna's summer with NOW-NYC cemented her desire to make a career out of women's rights advocacy, and she continues to volunteer with them today.

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.

Valerie Comenencia Ortiz, originally from Caguas, Puerto Rico, graduated from Columbia College in 2014, majoring in Human Rights with a concentration in Sustainable Development. As part of the Five-Year Dual Degree Program, she completed a Master’s in International Affairs with a Concentration in Economic and Political Development and a specialization in Gender and Public Policy from the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) in 2015.

During her time at Columbia, Valerie led various human rights student groups, including Columbia University Students for Human Rights and the Human Rights Working Group. She also worked as a research assistant for Professor Elazar Barkan, focusing on truth commissions and reconciliation in Latin America.

Valerie subsequently earned a law degree from Yale Law School in 2018. She will begin her legal career at Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, a plaintiff-side firm in San Francisco.