As a Strategic Advisor to the Human Rights Foundation, among my responsibilities are to further develop the Oslo Scholars Program, to help create College Freedom Forums, to contribute to overall HRF strategy, and to utilize our Convisero network to reciprocal advantage.

Oslo Scholars

I created the Oslo Scholars Program (OS) and first established it at the Institute for Global Leadership at Tufts in 2010 and have continued to work over the last 15 years to reinforce its impact and extend its reach. Every year, students are selected, often in consultation with the previous generation of Scholars, to attend the annual Oslo Freedom Forum of the Human Rights Foundation in Norway. They assist selected Forum speakers and meet HRF honorees who they subsequently assist with their advocacy, either remotely, or wherever possible on their home ground. They can also attend the Freedom Forum in New York.

Above left, I am pictured with my Tufts University Oslo Scholars, Caitlin Thompson, and Jack Margolin with the human rights activist, renowned actor Jeffrey Wright.

Over the years, my Institute students, now Trebuchet interns and students I mentor have worked with remarkable individuals and organizations such as Srdja Popovic of CANVAS, Izzeldin Abuelaish of Daughters for Life, Justine Hardy of Healing Kashmir, One Day Seyoum of Eritrea; the Courage Fund Cambodia; and with the Albert Einstein Institute of Cambridge in Massachusetts.

In some instances they have become important professionals with such initiatives and NGOs. This year, Mike Niconchuk and Cody Valdes joined as Board members of Justine’s Healing Minds Foundation.

The OS Program has added chapters at Wellesley College and McGill University, among others, and I have personally expanded OS to Harvard University in my role as an adviser to the Harvard University International Relations Council. Amitai Abouzaglo, Harvard '20, was the first Harvard undergraduate to join the Oslo Freedom Forum as an Oslo Scholar. I recommended Amitai, having met him in the context of our interest in non-violent activism and grassroots community building, inspired by his summer volunteer work in Israel and Palestine with Roots, and his initiative Embodying Peace.

The Oslo Scholars program is now an annual internship offering of Harvard’s undergraduate International Relations Council.

Collaborating with Elle Ota, the HRF team member responsible for OS, I am reaching out to other universities to introduce the OS to valued candidates I know, working with directors of programs I collaborate closely with. Under consideration are Stellenbosch University in Cape Town, South Africa, where I have been asked to introduce the program by Convisero’s Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, the 2024 winner of the Templeton Prize, SaiU in Chennai where I am Professor of the Practice of International Relations and Global Affairs, and at Krea University, Sri City, India, with its Vice-Chancellor Nirmala Rao who invited me to create a distinguished lecture series. With Hon. Irwin Cotler, founder of the Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, we are approaching the Central European University.

I annually nominate experienced Trebuchet interns who demonstrate proven interest and aptitude. Liz Shelbred and Grace Spaulding-Fecher who have gone on to be valued HRF staff (Liz and Grace).

Among my current interns I am nominating come from Dartmouth College, Princeton University, Trinity College and Tufts.

I have also extended the OS program to remarkable high school students of my Trebuchet team, including Maria Udalova of Brookline High School, (pictured on the left) who just received the 2024 Physicians for Social Responsibility annual Youth Disarmament Award. Her Russian language skills enabled her to be an invaluable assistant for an HRF Belarus Ecohome an environmental NGO. On the right, Talia Wilcox, a co-recipient, is a Tufts senior who I will be recommending this year for the OSF.

Maria’s HRF statement as an Oslo Scholar:

“I was blown away by the effort and determination of the activists. It was astounding to be researching and reading about the people that I was working with – I was so impressed by their perseverance. The internship definitely gave me more motivation to keep working in the activism space.”

With Maria and Elle, I am investigating the creation of an HRF precedent, the first Human Rights Foundation high school chapter, at Brookline High School. My sense is that such students upon entering their universities will have interest in supporting HRF on their new campuses.

I worked with HRF to create the first HRF College Freedom Forum, a joint initiative of the HRF and the Institute for Global Leadership. It was convened at Tufts in November 2013.

On February 20, 2019, together we convened the first citywide College Freedom Forum in Boston at Harvard with the invaluable help of the Harvard International Relations Council and then IRC’s President, Eliza Rebellion Ennis. The event featured opening remarks from Steven Pinker; talks from the vocally anti-Erdogan Turkish NBA player Enes Kanter, female genital mutation activist Leyla Hussein, Syrian citizen-journalist Abdalaziz Alhamza, Chinese-Canadian dissident Ti-anna Wang; and a remarkable performance by Venezuelan violinist and street protester Wuilly Arteaga. The audience included invited students from many of the twenty-four campuses across Greater Boston. For more on the success of the College Freedom Forum, see our After Action Report.

This initial effort has laid the foundation for a recurring program in Boston. This April 2025, there will be another gathering as part of the "Democracy on the Brink" symposium, an Initiative for Global Leadership forum directed by my long-time IGL Assistant Director, Heather Barry, now the Special Adviser for Global Strategy at Tisch College of Civic Life.

The HRF has since organized College Freedom Forums with Yale University, Stanford University, and Universidad Francisco Marroquín, among others.

Representing HRF in my role as an Advisor, I often link my Trebuchet community to our common concerns and initiatives. Most recently, I have introduced my wonderful alumnus Dan Feldman to HRF's legal team as well its directors of HRF's Responsible Finance program. Likewise, Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a Palestinian-American activist, originally from Gaza City, who keynoted the 2024 HRF/OFF session in Oslo, works with me on my Trebuchet MENA activities, and will be a HRF Oslo Scholar representative at the IGL Tufts College Freedom Forum.