Sahar is a Senior Inspection and Research Officer at the Inspector of Custodial Services, New South Wales, Australia. She previously worked as a Senior Policy Officer at the Refugee Council of Australia, as the Vice Chair of the detention committee for the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network, and as a Humanitarian Observer for the Australian Red Cross, monitoring conditions in Australian onshore and offshore immigration detention facilities.
George Kourous is a communications professional with over twenty years experience engaging with international audiences around issues related to sustainable development, food security, and natural resource management. Currently a communications officer at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), he previously worked at the International Resource Center (IRC), a nonprofit think tank in the southwestern United States where he covered a range of issues including economic migration, U.S. immigration policy, and human rights, and as a freelance journalist based in South America. He has a bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Kalamazoo College and a master’s in International Affairs from Ohio University.
Yves Klein is a Partner at the Geneva law firm Monfrini Bitton Klein, where he specialises in international asset recovery, anti-corruption investigations, complex multi-jurisdictional civil proceedings, cross-border insolvency, and recognition of foreign judgements and awards. Admitted to the Geneva bar in 1995, he holds a Law degree from the University of Geneva (1989) and a Diploma of higher studies in international law from the Graduate Institute of International Studies of Geneva (1993). He is the founding Secretary of the Global Detention Project Association.
Pierre-Eric is the director of Processus Immobilier SA, an architectural firm in Geneva. He works on a multitude of architectural projects ranging from shop and restaurant fit-outs, building renovations and transformations, new build artisanal/light industrial buildings, shopping centres, individual houses, and apartment buildings across French-speaking Switzerland. He has served as Treasurer of the Global Detention Board and Executive Committee since 2014.
Roberta Cecchetti is a child rights expert who has more than two decades experience working with large and small non-governmental organisations, including 15 years with Save the Children. She has worked with UNICEF, OHCHR, and the Global Partnership to End Violence against Children. She has specific expertise in the field of child protection, including child protection systems, violence against children, corporal punishment, alternative care and the protection of migrant/refugee children. Her areas of work include research, evaluation, strategic planning, policy and advocacy for children and child participation. She served as Chair of the Executive Committee of Child Rights Connect for three years and for five years as Chair of the Executive Committee of the Global Detention Project.
Meghna Abraham served as Executive Director of the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR) and was the founding Chair and President of the Global Detention Project. She is an international human rights lawyer and an expert on economic, social, and cultural rights, and has spent over two decades working with communities to challenge the impact of unjust economic policies across a wide array of issues. She has previously worked with NGOs and academic centres in India, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, and worked at Amnesty International for over a decade–including as the Director of Global Issues and Head of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. She is a qualified Indian lawyer who holds a BA LLB (Hons) degree from the National Law School of India University, Bangalore, and BCL and MPhil in Law degrees from the University of Oxford, where she was a Radhakrishnan Chevening Scholar. She is a Fellow of the Nottingham Human Rights Law Centre. She was the founding Chair and President of the Global Detention Project Association.
Megan Day Paterson-Brown is an adjunct faculty member at Webster University, Department of Psychology. She previously worked as a mental health clinician and staff therapist at the University of Washington (1994-2001). In 2008, she co-founded Chance for Change, a Geneva-based non-profit organisation dedicated to empowering girls, women, and their families through direct grassroots sponsorship, education, and vocational training in developing countries such as Ethiopia and India.
Alexandra Dufresne teaches international human rights, immigration law and policy, and children’s rights at the Brooks School of Public Policy at Cornell University, where she also directs a new state-level policy and advocacy clinic. Before joining Cornell, Alexandra taught law at Yale College, the University of Zurich Faculty of Law, and the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, where she founded and directed the human rights clinic. In addition to her role as a member of the Executive Committee of the Global Detention Project, Alexandra serves on the Advisory Committees or Boards of AsyLex (Switzerland) and Asylos (worldwide), and writes frequently about refugee and immigrant rights, including freedom from detention, for various news outlets in Europe and the United States.
Seta is the Executive Counselor to the Secretary General of the Middle East Council of Churches. Since 2017, she has also been a Member and Secretary of the Armenian National Council of the Catholicosate of the Holy See of Cilicia. She has previously served in a variety of roles including as the director of the Diakonia and Social Justice Department at the Middle East Council of Churches, chair of the Armenian Genocide Museum Committee of Aram Bezikian of the Birds Nest, board member of the Goguikian Foundation, chair of the Centenary Central Committee of Armenian Genocide, and member of the all Armenia Fund in Lebanon. In 2016, she was decorated with the medal of Gratitude by the President of the Republic of Armenia, Serj Sarkissian.
Kirsten Sandberg is a jurist and expert on the rights of children. She is the Head of the University of Oslo’s Department of Public and International Law, and previously served as Acting Supreme Court Justice in Norway (2010-2011) and Chair of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. She has also been a visiting fellow at the European University Institute in Florence and the University of Chicago.
Michaela Told has worked for more than 25 years on development, humanitarian affairs, migration, global health, and human rights–at both the operational and policy levels. She is the Director of HI5 Governance, which seeks to drive human and social impact through improving governance and decision-making. Prior to this, she co-established and served as Executive Director of the Global Health Centre at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies and co-headed the WHO Collaborating Centre on Governance for Health and Global Health Diplomacy. In this role, she was instrumental in positioning global health diplomacy and governance for health as areas of engagement. Earlier in her career, she worked for more than 10 years across the world with the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement in different positions at local, regional, and international levels.
