CIHR Assistant to the Director
Martina Bizzotti
Martina Bizzotti is the Assistant to the Director of the CIHR. She was born and raised in Rome, Italy. She holds a Master’s Degree in International Crime & Justice and a BA in International Criminal Justice from John Jay College. Her interests include women's rights, international tribunals, international law and policy, crime prevention, and organized crime. Martina has participated as a research team member in the “Youth and Security” initiative on violence reduction, for the U.S. Embassy in Bangui, has contributed to the creation of training modules on Human Rights Law and International Humanitarian Law for human rights defenders in the Philippines. She currently works for the Kings County District Attorney's office, but continues to engage in research and advocacy for human rights.
2020-2022 Assistant to the Director
Alexandra Johnson
Alexandra Johnson is the Associate Editor of the peer-reviewed journal Human Rights Review, and a graduate student in the International Crime and Justice M.A. program at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Prior to graduate school, she worked as an OSINT analyst and supervisor at the Western Jihadism Project -- a government-funded social sciences lab based out of Brandeis University in Massachusetts, where she received her B.A. in International and Global Studies. Her work there primarily focused on researching and analyzing the network structure of Islamist extremist organizations as well as the crime-terror nexus. She is also an HSI-trained human trafficking trainer and a founding member of the Global Strategic Operatives for the Eradication of Human Trafficking, which was initiated at the United Nations in 2018 and has since championed a national pilot program to train healthcare systems in identifying and responding to trafficking situations. Her research interests include the social network structure of criminal organizations, the intersection of conflict and conflict-driven migration with human trafficking, and the role of the 'pre-criminal space' in criminal justice and national security systems---particularly as it pertains to counterterrorism policy and its interaction with human rights.
2018-2020 Assistant to the Director
Jennifer Hirst
Jennifer Hirst graduated from the Honors College at the University of Massachusetts Amherst with a B.S. in Psychology and Criminal Justice, and is currently a Masters candidate in the International Crime and Justice program. She also serves as a student representative for the IC&J program. She is passionate in learning about crime and behavior, and her primary area of interest focuses around human rights violations within the prison systems in the U.S., U.K., and Middle East.
2017-2018 Assistant to the Director
Aline Shaban
Aline Shaban received her M.A. in International Criminal Justice at John Jay College with a minor in Human Rights and Political Science. She was a John Jay – Vera fellow and an intern at Safe Horizon Anti-Trafficking Program. She was the President of Students Without Borders, a student organization that brings awareness about human rights violations and advocates for the application of international human rights standards. Aline was also a volunteer at the Prison to College Pipeline (P2CP) program, an educational initiative of the John Jay’s Prisoner Reentry Institute that facilitates the transition of prison students into college. Prior to that, she served as the Vice President of John Jay’s Model United Nations team, she was a member of the Judicial Board, and interned at the Center for Palestine Studies (CPS) at Columbia University. Her research interests include state-sponsored violence, ethnic and religious conflicts, humanitarian affairs, dispossession and migration.
Contact chrights@jjay.cuny.edu for more information.