Get to Know Our Board Members

Afia Asantewaa Asare-Kyei leads continental efforts and initiatives to promote the rule of law and challenge the abuse of power by state, non-state, private sector and foreign actors, in relation to legal and institutional reforms, accountability and justice as part of her role at the Open Society Foundations-Africa. She has previously worked at the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Save the Children and the U.S. Agency for International Development. She is a human rights lawyer and development professional with extensive experience in strategy development, program design, grant management, research and stakeholder engagement in Southern, Western and Central Africa. She has a background in developing transformational social programs and legal-advocacy strategies through the provision of technical advice and input into the policy and programming of civil society organizations and other stakeholders. This includes on issues such as accountability and the rule of law, freedom of information and expression, human rights and substantive justice, especially as they relate to the inclusion, equality of opportunity and empowerment of poor, vulnerable and under-represented groups such as women, children, persons with disabilities and LGBTQIA+ communities. She is passionate about Africa, its development and has in-depth knowledge of regional mechanisms, institutions and their rules of procedure.

Evelyn Aswad is a Professor of Law and the Herman G. Kaiser Chair in International Law at the University of Oklahoma College of Law. She is also the Director of its Center for International Business & Human Rights. Her scholarship is focused on freedom of expression online. From 1999 to 2013, she served as an attorney in the U.S. Department of State’s Legal Bureau, most recently as the director of the Legal Office of Human Rights and Refugees, and a member of the Senior Executive Service. During her time at the State Department, she advised on various issues including freedom of expression online, the assessment of foreign and domestic laws, and practices with regard to international human rights standards, issues of mass atrocities, global corporate responsibility standards and U.S. engagement at the United Nations on human rights. She also earned several superior honor awards for her bilateral and multilateral diplomacy. Previously, she served as a law clerk for the Hon. Arthur J. Gajarsa for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and worked as a corporate lawyer at Arnold & Porter in Washington, D.C.

Endy Bayuni is Senior Editor and advisor to the editorial board at The Jakarta Post, and writes on national politics, international relations, political Islam and the media landscape. He has been a journalist for over 40 years, which includes stints at Reuters and Agence France-Presse as their Indonesian correspondent early in his career. He is a founding board member of the International Association of Religion Journalists where he served as Executive Director (2016 -2021). He is a recipient of several journalism fellowships, including the Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University in 2003/2004 and the Jefferson Fellowship at Hawaii University in 1999. Bayuni serves on the board of several non-governmental organizations, including Tifa Foundation, Yayasan Humanis dan Inovasi Sosial and the Institute for Policy Analysis and Conflict.

Paolo Carozza is Professor of Law and Concurrent Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame, where he has also served for 10 years as the Director of the Kellogg Institute for International Studies, and where he directs the Notre Dame Constitutionalism and Rule of Law Lab, which he founded. His scholarly books and articles in the areas of comparative constitutional law and human rights law have been published widely in four languages. He is currently the United States member of the European Commission for Democracy through Law (the Venice Commission). Formerly, he served as President of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and as a member of the US State Department’s independent, non-partisan, advisory Commission on Unalienable Rights. He is a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, and has lectured and taught as a visiting professor in various universities in Europe, North America and Latin America, including twice as a Senior Fulbright Scholar and as the John Harvey Gregory Lecturer on World Organization at Harvard Law School.

Katherine Chen holds a PhD from the University of Texas at Austin and is Distinguished Professor of Communication at National Chengchi University (NCCU), Taiwan. She is also current Dean of College of Communication at NCCU, a former commissioner of the National Communications Commission of Taiwan, and has served as both Associate Dean of the College of Communication and as Vice Chair of the Chinese Communication Society. She has been on the Review Committee in Taiwan’s Ministry of Science and Technology, advised the Ministry of Science and Technology in various capacities and served as an external reviewer for the Research Grants Council in Hong Kong. Chen has also been a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Asian Journal of Communication and on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Communication Research and Practices. Chen has received a number of research awards from the Ministry of Science and Technology and National Chengchi University. Her academic research has been published in journals such as Telecommunications Policy, Comunicar, Journalism Studies, New Media & Society, Public Relations Review and the Chinese Journal of Communication. Her research interests include media content and its effects, social media in elections, as well as mobile communication and privacy.

Nighat Dad is the founder and Executive Director of Digital Rights Foundation, a non-profit working on digital freedoms in Pakistan. Her work focuses on digital rights, particularly data protection, free speech online and online violence. She identifies as a feminist and works to empower women in the Global South through the use of digital technology. She is the recipient of the prestigious Human Rights Tulip Award. She is also a TED Fellow and one of TIME’s Next Generation Leaders.

Tawakkol Karman is a journalist, human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. Known as the “mother of the revolution,” “the iron woman” and “the lady of the Arab Spring,” Karman emerged as a central figure in the peaceful revolution of 2011 in Yemen and the Arab Spring. Her constant struggles for democracy, human rights and peace, and her leadership of non-violent resistance to tyranny in the Middle East, specifically in the Arab Spring countries and Yemen, led her to be honored with the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011. This recognition marked her as the first Arab woman and the second Muslim woman to receive this esteemed prize. In 2005, she founded Women Journalists Without Chains, an organization championing press freedom and democratic rights. In 2011, during the Arab Spring, despite attempts on her life, she led a peaceful revolution against dictatorship in Yemen, which ended in the resignation of then-President Ali Saleh. In the post-Saleh era, she remained a dynamic force during Yemen's transitional period. Despite dramatic changes in the political landscape since then, her efforts continue. Karman has taken on international roles, including membership of the United Nations High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on Post-2015 Development. TIME magazine named her both one of the 100 most influential women defining the last century and one of the Most Rebellious Women in History, and she was listed among Foreign Policy Magazine’s Top 100 Global Thinkers.

Sudhir Krishnaswamy is Vice Chancellor and Professor of Law at the National Law School of India University, and the Secretary and Treasurer of the Consortium of National Law Universities of India. Previously, he was the Director of the School of Policy and Governance and Professor of Law and Politics at Azim Premji University, as well as the Dr B.R. Ambedkar Visiting Professor of Indian Constitutional Law at Columbia Law School. He graduated with a BA LLB from the National Law School of India University and, as a Rhodes Scholar, read for a Bachelor of Civil Law and a Doctor of Philosophy (Law) from the University of Oxford. He was a member of the founding team of the Alternative Law Forum, which has evolved radical forms of alternative lawyering rooted in marginalized groups. He is a co-founder of the Centre for Law and Policy Research, which aims to redefine the concept and practice of public-interest lawyering in India and ensure that the Constitution works for everyone. His academic research and writing investigate key questions in constitutional and administrative law, property law and development, with a special focus on Indian legal system reform. He is the author of Democracy and Constitutionalism in India, and co-editor of Hollow Hope.

Ronaldo Lemos is a lawyer specializing in technology, intellectual property, media and public policy. He is a partner at Renno Penteado Sampaio Advogados, a leading law firm in Brazil, and has 20 years’ experience in the private and public sectors. He was a Visiting Scholar at Oxford, Princeton, the MIT Media Lab and a Visiting Professor at the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). He co-created Brazil’s Internet Bill of Rights Law (2014) and Brazil’s National IoT Plan (2018), and served on the board of the Mozilla Foundation, Access Now and other non-profit organizations. Previously, Lemos was Vice-President of the Social Communication Council in the National Congress in Brazil. He writes weekly about law and technology for Folha de S. Paulo, one of Brazil’s most widely read newspapers.

Khaled Mansour is a writer and communications expert with extensive experience at the United Nations and as a foreign correspondent. He has worked and written on political issues, human rights, humanitarian aid and peacekeeping. From 1990 to 1999, he worked as a journalist, and from 1999 to 2013, he worked as a UN Spokesperson and Communications Advisor/Director. In these roles, he worked in conflict and transitional situations, such as in South Africa, Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and Sudan in addition to his work on U.S. politics in Washington D.C. in the 1990s and at the UN headquarters in New York. Before he became a full-time writer in 2015, he was the Executive Director of Egypt's leading human rights organization, EIPR (2013-2014). He has published seven books, mostly in Arabic. His debut novel, A Minefield, and his memoirs on Afghanistan, From Taliban to Taliban, appeared in early 2022. He has obtained degrees in Engineering, Archaeology, Sociology and International Relations from universities in Egypt, South Africa and the U.S. He keeps a blog at khaledmansour.org.

Michael W. McConnell is the Richard and Frances Mallery Professor and Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School, where he teaches a course on freedom of speech, press and religion, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. From 2002 to 2009, he served as a Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. He was nominated by President George W. Bush, a Republican, and confirmed by a Democratic Senate by unanimous consent. McConnell has previously held chaired professorships at the University of Chicago and the University of Utah, and visiting professorships at Harvard and NYU. He has published widely in the fields of constitutional law and theory, especially church and state, equal protection and separation of powers. He is co-editor of three books, Religion and the Law, Christian Perspectives on Legal Thought and The Constitution of the United States. McConnell has argued 15 cases in the United States Supreme Court, and served as law clerk to Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. and D.C. Circuit Chief Judge J. Skelly Wright. He has been Assistant General Counsel of the Office of Management & Budget, Assistant to the Solicitor General of the Department of Justice, and a member of the President's Intelligence Oversight Board.

Suzanne Nossel is Chief Executive Officer at PEN America and author of Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All. Prior to joining PEN America, she served as the Chief Operating Officer of Human Rights Watch and as Executive Director of Amnesty International U.S. She served in the Obama administration as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations, leading U.S. engagement in the United Nations and multilateral institutions on human rights issues, and in the Clinton administration as Deputy to the U.S. Ambassador for UN Management and Reform. Nossel coined the term “Smart Power,” which was the title of a 2004 article that she published in Foreign Affairs magazine and later became the theme of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s tenure in office. She is a featured columnist for Foreign Policy magazine and has published columns in The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, as well as scholarly articles in Foreign Affairs, Dissent and Democracy, among others. She has served senior roles in the private sector at Dow Jones and Bertelsmann.

Julie Owono is the Executive Director of the Content Policy & Society Lab (CPSL) and a fellow of the Program on Democracy and the Internet (PDI) at Stanford University. She is also the Executive Director of digital rights organization Internet Sans Frontières, and an affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University. She holds a Master’s degree in International Law from the Sorbonne University in Paris, and practiced as a lawyer at the Paris Bar. With fluency in five languages, a childhood spent in various countries and an educational background at the Lyçée Français Alexandre Dumas in Moscow, Julie has a unique perspective on understanding the challenges and opportunities of a global internet. This background has shaped her belief that global and multi-stakeholder collaborations can be instrumental in the emergence of rights-based content policies and regulations. Julie is a member of the Global Partnership on AI (GPAI) created by France and Canada, as well as a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on AI for Humanity and of the WEF Council on the Connected World. She was also a member of UNESCO’s Ad Hoc Expert Group (AHEG), which drafted the first international text on Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence. Julie is a Member of the World Benchmarking Alliance’s Expert Committee on Digital Inclusion.

Emi Palmor was born in Jerusalem and raised in Belgium, Norway and Argentina. She studied law at the Hebrew University, becoming a member of the Israeli Bar in 1991. She worked as a civil servant at the Israeli Ministry of Justice, initially as a prosecutor at the Supreme Court department of the State Attorney’s office, and then as Director of the Department of Pardons. Between 2014 and 2019, she served as Director General of the Ministry of Justice, developing innovative employment diversity programs, advancing access to justice via digital services and platforms, and working towards the betterment and reduction of regulation. She initiated educational projects for the prevention of online assault and privacy protection for minors, and established the country's Anti-Racism Coordinating Government Unit. In addition, she headed national committees for the examination and recommendation of policies to eradicate racism towards Israelis of Ethiopian descent, for the reduction of purchase of sex services and for coping with the negative consequences of polygamy. For her long-standing contribution to advancing equality and coexistence between Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel, Palmor was honored as a Champion of Shared Society by the Abraham Initiatives. Since 2022, she has been the Chairperson of Natal, an NGO that specializes in the field of war and terror related trauma, and aims to advance the resiliency of Israeli society through treatment, prevention, public awareness and research. She is also currently an adjunct lecturer at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, lecturing on policy design, governance and law, as well as a strategic consultant and Chair of the Gesher Multicultural Film Fund.

Alan Charles Rusbridger is the Editor of Prospect magazine. Until September 2021, he was Principal at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. He is Chair of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and former Editor-in-Chief of The Guardian newspaper in the United Kingdom, from 1995 until 2015. His academic awards include recognition by universities such as Harvard, CUNY, Oslo, Lincoln, Coventry, Kingston and the Open University. In 2014, he was a recipient of the Right Livelihood Award in Stockholm – the so-called “alternative Nobel Prize.” The Guardian’s coverage of surveillance by western intelligence agencies was recognized with the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2014. Educated at Cambridge University, he has also written children’s books and a screenplay. He is the author of “Play it Again” and “Breaking News: The Remaking of Journalism and Why it Matters Now.” He was a member of the Scott Trust, which owns The Guardian newspaper, served as a board member of the Royal National Theatre in London and currently serves on the Board of the Committee to Protect Journalists.

András Sajó is a former Judge and Vice President of the European Court of Human Rights, a University Professor and Founding Dean of Legal Studies at the Central European University, and a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He served as legal advisor to the first freely elected President of Hungary and has published extensively in the area of comparative constitutional law. He also participated as an advisor in drafting the Ukrainian, Georgian and South African (interim) constitutions. He was a recurrent visiting law professor at ELTE Budapest, University of Chicago, Cardozo and NYU, and taught courses at Harvard, Columbia, University of New South Wales and other law schools. His most recent book publications are The Constitution of Freedom (Oxford University Press, 2017) and Ruling by Cheating – Governance in Illiberal Democracy (Cambridge University Press, 2021).

John Samples is a Vice President at the Cato Institute. He founded and now directs Cato’s Center for Representative Government, which studies freedom of speech, the First Amendment and other aspects of American political institutions. He is currently working on an update to his monograph, Why Government Should Not Regulate Content Moderation of Social Media. He is also the author of The Struggle to Limit Government: A Modern Political History and The Fallacy of Campaign Finance Reform, as well as the co-editor with Michael McDonald of The Marketplace of Democracy. Prior to joining Cato, he served as Director of Georgetown University Press for eight years and before that, as Vice President of the Twentieth Century Fund. He has published scholarly articles in journals including Society, History of Political Thought and Telos, along with numerous contributions to edited volumes. He has also been featured in publications such as USA Today, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. Samples received his PhD in political science from Rutgers University.

Pamela San Martín is a lawyer from Mexico City who has dedicated her career to advancing human rights, freedom of expression and democratic institutions. Between 2014 and 2020, she served as one of 11 Electoral Councilors at Mexico's National Electoral Institute – the highest position in the country's electoral management body. There, she worked on organizing peaceful elections and managing key issues of campaign regulation and freedom of speech and information. As Electoral Councilor, she played a central role in developing policies to guarantee minority rights in democratic processes including trans and disability rights and quotas for indigenous people. She has also sat on the editorial board of one of Mexico’s most widely circulated newspapers. Prior to her time at the Electoral Institute, San Martin worked at Mexico City’s Human Rights Commission for almost a decade. She is currently an international consultant on elections, democracy, and human rights, particularly in countries facing polarization and violence, and has participated as an expert in international observation missions.

Nicolas Suzor is a Professor and Future Fellow at the Law School at Queensland University of Technology. He is also a Chief Investigator of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society. His research focuses on improving accountability, equality and human rights in the governance of digital technology and automated systems. He is the author of the 2019 book Lawless: the secret rules that govern our digital lives.

Helle Thorning-Schmidt is the former Prime Minister of Denmark, a position she held from 2011 to 2015. She also served as leader of the opposition and party leader in the Danish Parliament and as a member of European Parliament. Following her time in public office, she served as the Chief Executive of Save the Children, helping improve conditions and bringing awareness to the plight of children in some of the most difficult and challenging places in the world. As a part of this role, she worked to highlight the humanitarian crises in Yemen and Syria, and the Rohingya refugee crisis in Myanmar. She remains engaged in geopolitical issues as a member of several foreign policy think tanks, including the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations, the European Council for Foreign Relations, the Atlantic Council International Advisory Board and Berggruen 21st Century Council. Thorning-Schmidt also serves on various corporate boards in Denmark, the United Kingdom and the United States, and uses her deep political and international expertise to advise a range of businesses and not-for-profit groups, devoting time to defending and renewing progress, social justice and democracy. She holds a Master’s Degree in Political Science from the University of Copenhagen and a Master’s Degree in European Studies from the College of Europe in Bruges.

Kenji Yoshino is the Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Constitutional Law at New York University School of Law and the Director of the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging. He specializes in constitutional law, antidiscrimination law and law and literature, and previously served as Deputy Dean at Yale Law School. He currently serves on the board of the Brennan Center for Justice and on advisory boards for diversity and inclusion for Morgan Stanley and Charter Communications. He has won numerous awards for his teaching and scholarship and has published four books, including his most recent book (co-authored with David Glasgow), Say the Right Thing: How to Talk About Identity, Diversity and Justice (Simon & Schuster, 2023).