Melisa Oleschuk
Melisa graduated with First-Class Honours in 2020 and received a nomination for the BLSS Outstanding Student Award. She later pursued her LLM in International Human Rights, achieving a distinction and earning the Executive Dean's prize for Outstanding Postgraduate contribution to the School of Law. During her graduation in 2022, Melisa delivered the closing address at Symphony Hall.
Her background includes engaging in staff/student research projects and participating in international training opportunities, all aimed at enhancing her knowledge of human rights advocacy and civil society engagement. Currently, she is actively seeking opportunities to gain teaching experience. Melisa successfully completed the 61st United Nations Graduate Study Programme in Geneva, where she was chosen among 58 candidates from a pool of over 800 applicants worldwide.
For her PhD, Melisa will focus on the UN's Universal Periodic Review (UPR) and its potential for more effective use by civil society organisations (CSOs) to communicate human rights standards both domestically and internationally. Her research will consider fundamental human rights principles and established theoretical CSO practice models. The anticipated outcome of her project is the development of a model for CSOs to advocate for targeted, accessible, and human rights-aligned law reform using the UPR.