School of Law PhD Researchers
Find out more about current PhD researchers in the School of Law (including the Law Clinic, Legal Innovation Centre and Transitional Justice Institute).
Find out more about current PhD researchers in the School of Law (including the Law Clinic, Legal Innovation Centre and Transitional Justice Institute).
Nada Ahmed
Narratives of Perpetration in Transitional Justice Mechanisms: The Cases of Libya, Tunisia & Egypt
Nada Ahmed has worked as a lawyer and human rights research after she obtained a master degree in human rights law from Paris during which she worked with Human Rights Watch, in their Paris office and a bachelor degree in international law from both Paris 1 Sorbonne University and Cairo University.
She worked with Egyptian prominent human rights lawyer Negad El Borai on public opinion cases like the foreign funding case or the assembly law case in Egypt. She also worked with El Borai as a researcher as she wrote various papers about travel ban and enforced disappearances but most importantly she proposed, researched and drafted the Prisoners' handbook: a Q & A about the prison rules and regulations in Egypt. Nada also worked as a researcher interviewing torture victims, monitoring and documenting torture cases with Nation Without Torture campaign.
She joined Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy in December 2018 as a non-resident fellow with a focus on Egypt security sector and transitional justice in Tunisia. To pursue her in interest for transitional justice, she joined the Transitional Justice Institute in Ulster University for her PhD focusing on Narratives of Perpetration in transitional justice mechanisms in three MENA region countries: Egypt, Tunisia and Libya.
Howard Ayo
Howard’s project is on ‘National Action Plan On Business and Human Rights: Implications for Human Rights Obligations of the State and Business Enterprises. Comparative Study of Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania’. He holds a Masters of Business Administration (2015) and a Post Graduate Diploma in Financial Management (2011) from Uganda Management Institute, and Bachelor’s Degree in Development Studies from Mbarara University of Science and Technology (2007), Uganda.
He has over eight years of experience with the United Nations Human Rights in Uganda focusing broadly on technical assistance and capacity building for different interlocutors on Economic Social and Cultural Rights and specifically, National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights, 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, Human Rights Indicators and Human Rights Based Approach to Data. His current research focuses on the National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights and Implications for Human Rights Obligations of the State and Business Enterprises. This research is informed by the United Nations Protect, Respect and Remedy framework (2011) and the increased business and human rights related impacts on the rights-holders. Further, it also addresses a call by the Human Rights Council for Member States to adopt National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights.
Sasha Gillespie
After a career as a special education teacher for almost a decade, Sasha returned to study for her LLB and LLM. The combination of background and recent experiences at the Ulster Law Clinic while studying Access to Justice, her focus sharpened on Social Justice. She has a particular interest in the experiences of those who care for the disabled in employment, the welfare system and wider social participation in the context of equality law theory, and feminist perspectives.
Sasha’s project focuses on whether there is a discriminatory impact of the legal framework upon carers that is likely to cause social exclusion, poverty and significant barriers to entering or remaining in employment. Her research is interested in the experiences of carers and potential legal and policy approaches to encourage positive attitudes, inclusion and equality for this increasingly large section of society.
Michael Hearty
How and why do we (not) collectively remember non-combatants in Northern Ireland?
Micheál joined the TJI in September 2020. His PhD project is titled "How and why we do (not) collectively remember non-combatants in Northern Ireland?" Prior to beginning his PhD project, Micheàl pursued undergraduate studies in history and sociology at QUB and later gained an MA in Conflict Transformation and Social Justice from The Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice.
During his time at QUB, he also volunteered as a Student Research Assistant for the QUB Human Rights Centre's Historical Institutional Abuse Consultation. His assigned section was on symbolic reparations.
Email: Hearty-M6@ulster.ac.uk
Twitter: @HeartyMicheal
Quinn O'Mahar
Quinn received a BA in International Relations from Beloit College in 2016 and his LLM in International Human Rights Law from University of Galway in 2022. His research interests are in International Human Rights Law, economic rights, labour rights, social destitution, and social inclusion. Quinn’s PhD project is ‘The Rise of Diseases and Deaths of Despair in the United States: the Role of Labour Rights’. The aim of this project is to assess the if improving labour rights protections and promotion in the US can counteract the increase of deaths from suicides, overdoses, and deaths from alcohol-related disease, collectively labelled Deaths of Despair. Quinn’s supervisors are Dr. Mark Simpson, Dr. Ciara Fitzpatrick, and Prof. Rory O’Connell.
Juliana Poveda Clavijo
Juliana is a lawyer specialised in human rights and international humanitarian law from the National University of Colombia, 2013. She obtained an MA in political studies from the Institute of Political Studies and International Relations of the National University of Colombia in 2020. She explored in her thesis the violent configuration of the local institutions in a municipality located on the Colombia-Panamanian border. In 2021, she pursued another MA in development studies, major in social justice perspectives -peace and conflict Studies- from the International Institute of Social Studies of the Erasmus University Rotterdam. She approached forced migration governance strategies in the Colombian-Venezuelan case.
Likewise, she has been a socio-legal and humanitarian practitioner focused on forced migration and transitional justice. Juliana worked for the Colombian judiciary and the ombudsman, and international and civil society organisations, in the country. Recently, she had the opportunity to contribute to the Colombian Truth Commission and the International Criminal Court, where she did a seven-month professional visit at trial chambers on reparations issues.
At Ulster University, she aims to address in her PhD project the relationship between reparative justice, durable solutions for people forced to migrate, and solidarity between states. Her supervisors are Prof Brandon Hamber, Dr Gillian Kane, and Dr Sarah Craig.
Stanley Georgia
Georgia Stanley is a second-year PhD researcher at Ulster University’s School of Law. She studied Law (Single Honours) at Queen’s University Belfast from 2017 – 2020 before obtaining her Master’s degree in Gender, Conflict, and Human Rights Law with distinction at Ulster University’s Transitional Justice Institute (2020 – 2021).
Georgia has a particular interest in the area of legal feminism. Her research background includes feminist perspectives on violence against women, with focus on the gender dynamics of domestic abuse; conflict-related sexual assault; and examining rape through a feminist lens.
Her preliminary thesis is titled ‘An Investigative Analysis of the Use, Role, and Influence of Rape Myths in Rape Trials Utilising Narratives from Northern Ireland’. Georgia’s doctoral research employs court transcript analysis of several Northern Irish rape cases using a feminist theoretical lens and critical discourse analysis in order to highlight and challenge the underlying sexist discourses and misogynistic narratives of the courtroom and their sociolegal implications for women in this jurisdiction and beyond.