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womenlawleadership
womenlawleadership

Project Leaders and Advisors

Seminar and Project Director

Rangita de Silva de Alwis
Associate Dean of International Affairs
Nonresident Leader in Practice at the Women and Public Policy Program at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government (2019-2021)

Rangita de Silva de Alwis at the United Nations.

Rangita de Silva de Alwis at the United Nations.

Distinguished Advisors to the Director and the Project

  • Deborah Rhode

    Ernest W. McFarland Professor of Law; Director, Center on the Legal Profession, Stanford University

  • David B. Wilkins, Lester Kissel Professor of Law, Director, Center on the Legal Profession, Vice ...
    David Wilkins

    Lester Kissel Professor of Law, Director, Center on the Legal Profession, Vice Dean for Global Initiatives on the Legal Profession, Harvard Law School

Global Leaders

  • Mary Robinson, first woman President of Ireland (1990-1997)
  • Julia Gillard, first woman Prime Minister of Australia (2010-2013)
  • Phumzile Mlamabo Ngcuka, Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women (2013-present); first woman Deputy President of South Africa (2005-2008)
  • Sisi Khampepe, Judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa (2009-present)
  • Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNSECO (2009-2017)
  • Navi Pillay, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (2008-2014)
  • Roberto Mangabeira Unger, Roscoe Pound Professor of Law, Harvard Law School; Minister of Strategic Affairs, Brazil (2007-2009)
  • Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein, Perry World House Professor of Practice of Law and Human Rights; United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (2014-2018)
  • Melanne Verveer, Executive Director of the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security; first US Ambassador for Global Women’s Issues (2009-2013)

  • Nancy Gertner, author of In Defense of Women: Memoirs of an Unrepentant Advocate (2011); Judge, US District Court of Massachusetts (1994-2011)

  • Hina Jilani, Advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan; first Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General on Human Rights Defenders (2000-2008)

  • Radhika Coomaraswamy,United Nations Under-Secretary-General, Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict (2006-2012); UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women (1994-2003)

  • Zainab Bangura,United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict

  • Sandie Okoro, Senior Vice President and World Bank Group General Counsel

  • Lubna Olayan, President, Suliman S. Olayan Foundation; CEO and Deputy Chairman, Olayan Financing Company (1986-2019)

Senior Academic Advisors 

  • Theodore Ruger (Chair), Dean and Bernard G. Segal Professor of Law
  • Cary Coglianese, Edward B. Shils Professor of Law and Professor of Political Science; Director, Penn Program on Regulation
  • Dorothy Roberts, George A. Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology and the Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights
  • Regina Austin, William A. Schnader Professor of Law
  • Beth Simmons, Andrea Mitchell University Professor in Law, Political Science and Business Ethics

  • Maggie Blackhawk, Assistant Professor of Law

  • Claire Finkelstein, Algernon Biddle Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy; Director, Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law

  • Serena Mayeri, Professor of Law and History

  • Christopher Yoo, John H. Chestnut Professor of Law, Communication, and Computer & Information Science; Director, Center for Technology, Innovation & Competition

  • Jacques deLisle, Stephen A. Cozen Professor of Law & Professor of Political Science; Director, Center for East Asian Studies

  • Amy Gadsden, Associate Vice Provost for Global Initiatives; Executive Director of Penn China Initiatives