The Rights ColLaboratory, the ColLab for short, is an undergraduate-focused, experiential learning research and advocacy lab, that was first launched at the beginning of the 2025/26 academic year. The lab seeks to equip the next generation of researchers and practitioners with the research and advocacy skills needed to tackle 21st century human rights challenges. It is housed within the University of Minnesota Human Rights Program in the Institute for Global Studies, College of Liberal Arts.
Our mission is to bridge the gap between human rights scholarship and practice by engaging students in research, policy, and advocacy practices that strengthen understanding of human rights, reduce inequality, and increase access to justice locally and globally.
We believe that human rights work should strengthen people’s understanding of their rights, amplify the power of their voices, and build their capacity to make change in their own communities by co-creating the tools that make human rights fulfillment possible. We work from the foundational idea that human rights research and advocacy is for everyone. We are committed to open and accessible knowledge production and dissemination. Our ColLab has a dual purpose: to disseminate research on human rights and to train students in effective practices of human rights research and advocacy.
Year 1 Projects
In its 2025-26 pilot academic year, the Rights ColLaboratory focused on creating this online resource library, Imagine Rights. We produced informational pages and explainers across a variety of human rights topic areas including enabling rights, resource rights, international accountability, and human rights in Minnesota. Through this site, we hope to inform anyone and everyone on the human rights that belong to them, human rights defenders that are protecting them, and provide ways to continue to engage and recognize these rights.
Meet the Founding Members of the Rights ColLaboratory
Dr. Carrie Booth Walling, Rights ColLaboratory Director
Carrie Booth Walling is Director of the Human Rights Program at the University of Minnesota-a hub of interdisciplinary research, teaching, and community outreach in the field of human rights. Walling is Director of Graduate Studies for the Graduate Minor in Human Rights, a faculty member in the Institute for Global Studies and affiliated faculty at the Humphrey School for Public Affairs and the University of Minnesota Law School. Her most recent book is Human Rights and Justice for All: Demanding Dignity in the United States and Around the World encourages readers to see the human rights issues in their neighborhoods and equips them to engage in human rights advocacy to promote policy change. Walling specializes in human rights, human rights education, human security, transitional justice, the United Nations Security Council and mass atrocity crimes. Walling is also author of All Necessary Measures: The United Nations and Humanitarian Intervention.
Riley Stern, Senior Student Researcher
Riley Stern is a senior studying economics and mathematics with minors in Public Health, Population Studies, and Creative Writing. During her 2024-25 term with the Human Rights Program, she began working alongside Dr. Walling to create the foundation for the inaugural Rights Collaboratory cohort. She is serving as the supervising senior student researcher for the 2025-26 academic year. Her advocacy and research interests lie within the areas of resource rights, climate justice, sustainable and equitable development, and information dissemination.
Sanket Deshpande, Student Researcher
Sanket Deshpande is a Junior majoring in Economics and Political Science at the University of Minnesota. In the field of Human Rights, he is particularly interested in Humanitarian Law in Armed Conflict, and its role in mitigating reclusive, oppressive armed forces. This past summer, Sanket studied abroad in Scandinavia and Kosovo where he examined past and present atrocities, like in the Balkans and Gaza, and was deeply inspired to research these topics further.
Godwin Kasongoma, Student Researcher
Godwin Kasongoma is a fourth year student majoring in political science and global studies, and minoring in philosophy. Her extensive involvement in child and youth welfare work has fueled her drive to advocate for the rights and safety of young people in her community and internationally. She hopes to further this humanitarian ambition as a legal professional. In addition to striving in her studies and volunteering at her local library as a homework helper, Godwin enjoys spending time with her family, growing in her faith, and reading.
Anousha Mozammel, Student Researcher
Anousha Mozammel is a freshman at the University of Minnesota studying Political Science and minoring in Economics. Passionate in protecting free speech, particularly for college students across the nation, Anousha created her own digital news platform for students to write up filtered. She is dedicated to empowering communities and amplifying voices through data-driven advocacy. In her free time, Anousha enjoys traveling and listening to bossanova.
Katherine Schick, Student Researcher
Freshman Katherine Schick studies History and Global Studies at the University of Minnesota, striving to connect this learning with her human rights research. She’s particularly interested in 20th century human rights violations, preventative measures, and accountability mechanisms. While studying in the Netherlands in 2024, Schick visited the International Court of Justice, where she was intrigued by the role of human rights courts. When not studying, Schick loves to travel, explore her native Boston, and take dance classes.
Avika Mathur, Communications Liason
Avika Mathur is a third year student studying Economics with a Marketing concentration and Global Studies. She is currently working as a communications assistant for the Human Rights Program and will be acting as the communications liaison and consultant for the inaugural cohort of the Rights Collaboratory. Outside of the lab, she serves as the president of the Economics Student Association and has worked as a tutoring director for underserved K-12 students.
Additional Contributors
Additional website contributors include: Sydney Fadden, Elizabeth Gust, Staël Kpetsu, Erin Ostlund
About the Human Rights Program
The Human Rights Program (HRP), based in the Institute for Global Studies in the College of Liberal Arts, is an interdisciplinary hub of human rights research, teaching, outreach, and community engagement. The program collaborates broadly across both fields of study and departments including the humanities, law, social sciences, public policy, business, education, and public health. HRP encourages students and faculty of all disciplines to engage in research, analysis, and advocacy related to the ongoing defense of human rights across the globe.
The HRP has a threefold mission:
- To advance human rights scholarship through support for research and publications
- To educate the next generation of human rights scholars and professionals
- To engage with serious human rights issues through timely and meaningful projects, public programs, and internships
With these goals in mind, we work to envision a world where all people are equal in dignity and rights and have equal access to justice. HRP aspires to enable all students to: engage as leaders in human rights and social justice fields, solve complex human rights and social justice problems, and create a community where the dignity and rights of all human beings are promoted and protected.
We are committed to the principles of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility, and Justice (DEIAJ) and strive to align our practices with these principles. This includes examining and challenging systems of power and inequality. At its best, human rights advocates for the recognition and inclusion of all people, and yet we recognize that universal norms also have been used to perpetuate unequal power relations. We engage in serious critiques of the human rights idea and movement in order to understand how the pursuit of human rights can be carried out in more equitable ways.