AAAS Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights and Law Program

Current Staff | Staff Emeriti | Former Interns

Staff Emeriti

Jana Asher

Jana Asher (2002-2003; 2005-2007) left the program in order to focus on completing her dissertation. Her early work for AAAS included statistical consultation on projects for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission. As a Senior Program Associate, she was involved in several initiatives, including the SHR Program's casework activities on behalf of persecuted scientists, engineers, and health professionals through the AAAS Human Rights Action Network (AAASHRAN) and organization of SHR events. She served as the second SHR-AAAS representative on the steering committee of the African Transitional Justice Research Network and was also the statistical consultant on a multi-national survey of the Project on Science and Intellectual Property in the Public Interest. Finally, her work as the Metagora Training Materials Committee Chair, and as the Chair of the Rapid Response Committee of the Volunteerism Special Interest Group of the American Statistical Association, continued under the sponsorship of the AAAS during her tenure here.

• Publications by Jana Asher as a AAAS staff member

Victoria Baxter

Victoria Baxter (2000-2006) joined the United Nations Organization in July of 2006 after five years as a SHR staff member. While at AAAS as a Senior Program Associate, she directed the SHR Program's casework activities on behalf of persecuted scientists, engineers, and health professionals through the AAAS Human Rights Action Network (AAASHRAN). Victoria was also the primary staff member on several SHR transitional justice projects. Victoria was particularly interested in the issue of memorialization or how societies choose to remember and interpret past violence, and served as the first SHR-AAAS representative on the steering committee of the African Transitional Justice Research Network.

• Publications by Victoria Baxter as a AAAS staff member

Amanda Brewster

Amanda Brewster (2003-2005) was a Program Associate for the Project on Science and Intellectual Property in the Public Interest. She is interested in the application of scientific knowledge to address societal needs, particularly those related to public health and the environment. Before joining AAAS, she worked on science policy issues for the National Council for Science and the Environment. She has conducted research on pollination biology, and studied the ecology of Lyme disease transmission for her undergraduate thesis. Amanda left AAAS to pursue her higher education at the London School of Economics.

• Publications by Amanda Brewster as a AAAS staff member

Lars Bromley

Lars Bromley served as Project Director with the Science and Human Rights Program at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, leading the project on geospatial technologies and human rights, funded by the MacArthur and Oak Foundations as well as the Open Society Institute. He has conducted extensive work to apply remote sensing, satellite imagery, and related tools to large scale atrocities in Darfur, Burma, Ethiopia, and elsewhere, in partnership with Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and numerous other organizations. He has published in the International Journal of Remote Sensing, the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, and other publications, and is a member of the International Advisory Council of HURIDOCS. He holds an MA in Geography from the University of Maryland.

Audrey R. Chapman

Audrey R. Chapman, Ph.D., (1991-2006) served as the Director of the Science and Human Rights Program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for fifteen years. Until October 2002, she also directed the AAAS Program of Dialogue on Science, Ethics and Religion. Dr. Chapman directed or co-directed a series of AAAS projects dealing with health and human rights issues, developing strategies for monitoring economic and social rights, evaluating the effectiveness and impact of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and exploring the ethical and policy implications of genetic research and applications. She left AAAS in June of 2006 to become the first holder of the Healey Memorial Chair in the Medical Humanities and Bioethics at the University of Connecticut Health Center.

• Publications by Audrey Chapman as a AAAS staff member

Shannon Dougherty

Shannon Dougherty (2007) was a Darfur Conflict Analyst for the Geospatial Technologies and Human Rights Project. Her main interests include using geospatial technologies as tools for community development, environmental conservation, and human rights issues. She was the primary support staff member working on a Darfur-focused mapping project that aimed to collect, analyze, and utilize satellite imagery to identify and highlight the extent of destruction occurring in Darfur. She has a BA from Geneseo State University in Geography and a dual MA in International Affairs/Natural Resources and Sustainable Development from both American University and the University for Peace in Costa Rica.

Karen Douthwaite

Karen Douthwaite (2008) was a Geospatial Analyst for the Geospatial Technologies and Human Rights Project. Karen's primary interests lay in community-based conservation and natural resource management, particularly in tropical ecosystems. Prior to joining AAAS, she was a Program Officer in the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation's Andes-Amazon Initiative. She has extensive research experience in Central and South America and has worked with conservation organizations such as The Nature Conservancy, Conservation International, and the Bushmeat Crisis Taskforce. She received a BA in Environmental Sciences from the University of Virginia and an M.S. in Conservation Biology and Sustainable Development from the University of Maryland.

Stephen A. Hansen

Stephen Hansen (1995-2007) was Project Director with the Science & Human Rights Program. His work focused on projects relating to the effects of intellectual property rights on science, and traditional knowledge and human rights. He served as the Project Manager for the AAAS project Science & Intellectual Property in the Public Interest (SIPPI). He is co-author of the handbook Traditional Knowledge and Intellectual Property and designed the Traditional Ecological Knowledge Prior Art Database (T.E.K.*P.A.D), an online digital archive of traditional practices from local communities throughout the world that are already in the public domain. Stephen’s other main area of work was in economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR), with a special concentration in cultural rights where he worked with the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and UNESCO. He is the author of a chapter on cultural rights in the program’s publication Core Obligations: Building a Framework for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Other ESCR work has been in violations monitoring and documentation, which included the publication of the Thesaurus of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. He has directed projects with the National Commission for Human Rights in Honduras, and the Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (Center for Legal and Social Research, CELS) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Stephen holds a Bachelor's degree in Anthropology from Oberlin College and an M.A. in Anthropology from The George Washington University in Washington, DC.

• Publications by Stephen Hansen

Michael Kisielewski

Michael Kisielewski (2004-2007) was Program Associate for the AAAS project on Science and Intellectual Property in the Public Interest (SIPPI). His areas of interest included traditional knowledge and intellectual property in the life sciences, intellectual property patenting issues at the international level, and general national and international science policy. Prior to joining AAAS, Michael served the Center for Science in the Public Interest’s (CSPI) Food and Agriculture program as a research associate and, before joining CSPI, he worked as a research associate for the National Academy of Sciences’ Board and Agriculture and Natural Resources. In that capacity, Michael provided background research and prepared text for several studies on national and international agricultural biotechnology, where he worked with numerous science advisory committees—many of which included experts whose innovations were in the process of being patented. Michael received a Master of Arts degree in International Security Studies from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from George Washington University. He has published and presented several professional conference papers on national and international science policy.

• Publications by Mike Kisielewski

Sean O’Connor

Sean O’Connor (2007) was a Burma Conflict Analyst for the Geospatial Technologies and Human Rights Project. He graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara with an honors degree in physical geography in 2005. Since moving to Washington, D.C. after college, Sean has worked as a researcher for National Geographic Magazine and with geospatial technologies and development in Africa with the international non-profit, Bridges.org. He has plans to attend the Communication, Culture and Technology Master of Arts program at Georgetown University in the Fall of 2007.

Sarah Olmstead

Sarah Olmstead (2004-2006) was Project Coordinator and later a consultant with the Science and Human Rights Program. She left AAAS to become a graduate fellow at the Pardee RAND Graduate School (PRGS) located in Santa Monica, California. A slight departure from her masters work in physics, Sarah will be studying for a Ph.D. in Policy Analysis. Sarah is interested in the intersection between science and society and how science can be employed in the public interest. She has worked with the Black Sash and the Parliamentary Monitoring Group in South Africa, attending parliamentary meetings and disseminating minutes of those meetings in an effort to encourage public understanding and oversight of governmental processes. She received a B.S. in physics from Harvey Mudd College and an M.S. in physics from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, where her thesis was on in vivo autocorrelation spectroscopy of cotransfected proteins.

Josh Robbins

Josh Robbins was Senior Project Coordinator and later Program Associate for the Science and Human Rights Program (2006-2008). Josh's areas of focus were open access, wireless technologies and communication rights. Before coming to AAAS, Josh was a graduate academic advisor at American University. He also served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Kingdom of Tonga (2000-2002). Josh holds an M.A. in International Communication from American University.

Mona Younis

Mona Younis (2007-2009) was Director of the Science and Human Rights Program. As Director, she undertook with Program staff an extensive redesign of the Program, leading to the adoption of a new Program mission and the development of several new projects. Building on earlier SHRP efforts, she facilitated and coordinated the development of the Science and Human Rights Coalition in collaboration with 20 scientific associations, she created opportunities for individual scientists to contribute to human rights work through "On-call" Scientists, and she oversaw the design and initial progress in the Article 15 Project. Under her guidance, work also began to bring Wireless Communication Technologies to human rights groups in the field, and to explore the potential uses of Network Mapping and Budget Analysis for efforts to advance human rights.

Former Interns

Ami Bavishi

Ami Bavishi (Fall/Winter 2010) is an intern for the Science and Human Rights Program, supporting the program on daily administrative tasks. She is currently pursuing her Master's in Public Health with a concentration in epidemiology at George Washington University.

Davis Baird

Davis Baird (Fall 2009) is an intern with the AAAS Science and Human Rights Coalition. He assists with the program’s research and outreach operations and is working on preparations for the Coalition’s January 2010 meeting. In addition, he has worked with the Article 15 project, gathering resources and reviewing state actions pertaining to the right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress. Davis graduated with a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the College of Charleston in May, 2009. He is interested in the neuropsychological aspects of aging and hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in Applied Social Psychology.

Ameya Bag

Ameya Bag (Spring 2009) is conducting research for the Wireless Communication Technologies and Human Rights project. Currently undertaking a Masters in Telecommunications at George Mason University, Ameya’s research interests include wireless networking, mobile communications and satellite communications.

Maggie Dodson

Maggie Dodson (Spring/Summer 2007) was an intern in the Geospatial Technologies and Human Rights project working to create historical GIS layers for human rights issues in Darfur, Sudan. Maggie was an undergraduate student at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania studying Sociology and Anthropology with a concentration in Criminal Justice. She was also obtaining a minor in Biology. She was interested in applying geospatial technologies to historical anthropological studies.

Ellen DuPont

Ellen DuPont (Summer 2009) is an intern with the Article 15 Project - investigating how Article 15 is being addressed in the current literature as well as examining what steps governments are taking to fulfill their obligation to realize this human right. Ellen is approaching her senior year as a Biology and Society major at Arizona State University, and she is interested primarily in the efficient and effective application of scientific and technological advancement for social benefit, especially in developing countries.

Dirk Ewers

Dirk Ewers (Summer 2008) conducted the initial research for the Human Rights and Budget Analysis project. Dirk was a graduate student at the newly founded Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. His previous work experience includes humanitarian and human rights work in Latin America (Colombia, Cuba, Guatemala) and local activism in Charlottesville, VA.

Rennie Ferguson

Rennie Ferguson (Summer 2008) contributed to the “Article 15” project by investigating the practical steps governments can take to realize the right to "enjoy the benefits of scientific progress." Rennie studied Anthropology and Mathematics at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA. Her interest in the practical application of human rights originates from research in physical anthropology conducted at the Institute for Historical Biology at William and Mary.

Jason Gordon

Jason Gordon (Summer 2009) is an intern for the Science and Human Rights Coalition. He is collecting baseline data on the human rights activities of Coalition Member and Affiliated Organizations. He is also supporting Coalition working groups in their various projects, including the development of an online database of resources on science and human rights. Jason will soon start his second of a 3-year dual-masters program in Public Administration and International Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle. His primary interest is in development and how differing cultural belief systems/norms affect international collaboration.

Amrita Rajasingham

Amrita Rajasingham (Summer 2010) was an intern with the Science and Human Rights Program. Her current work focused on the advancement of Article 15 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and providing general support to the Program. She has a BA in Psychology and Economics from Reed College and hopes to apply her educational background to a humanitarian context.

Rosh Sethi

Rosh Sethi (Summer 2008) contributed to the launch of the AAAS Science and Human Rights Coalition through research and outreach. At the time of his internship he was studying biology at Yale University. Rosh has traveled and worked in Haiti and India where he volunteered with Mother Teresa's Hospital for AIDS and Dr. Shroff's Charity Eye Hospital. Rosh has also conducted spinal cord injury research in the Lavik Lab at Yale University, and is co-publisher of the Yale Scientific Magazine.

John Sulik

John Sulik (Spring/Summer 2007) was a Remote Sensing Intern/Analyst for the Geospatial Technologies and Human Rights Project. He was working towards a Master of Science in Geographic Information Systems from The Florida State University, where he earned a B.S. in Political Science. His primary interest was in applying geospatial technology to social issues. Examples of this include digital change detection of village destruction in Darfur and integrating GIS with forced migration models.

Jessica Tufte

Jessica Tufte (Fall 2010) provided support to the Science and Human Rights Coalition and its working groups, including by conducting research on the intersection between science ethics and human rights standards, and assisting in research and drafting of a guide to assist scientific associations respond to individual cases of scientists under threat.  Jessica also assisted with preparations for the January 2011 Coalition meeting. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Biological Sciences and English from SUNY University at Buffalo.

Jeremy Weissman

Jeremy Weissman (Spring 2010) provided support to the AAAS Science and Human Rights Coalition, Council and working groups. He expanded the clearinghouse of syllabi on human rights and specific scientific disciplines, he conducted a comparison of ethics standards and human rights principles, and reviewed the human rights activities of scientific association in the past year. Jeremy is completing his last semester of an M.A. in Public Policy with a concentration in Philosophy and Social Policy at George Washington University.

(page updated 10/20/2010)