Dr. Rangita de Silva de Alwis, Director, International Human Rights Policy, Wellesley Centers for Women, Wellesley College, Boston, MA
Dr. Rangita de Silva de Alwis has worked with a vast network of civil society and government organizations to develop innovative women’s rights and human rights initiatives around the world including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, China, Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Mexico, Georgia, Russia and Egypt. Her work is focused on using international human rights norms to guide law reform initiatives. She is an Advisory Group member of the Secretariat for the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and has led many initiatives on disability law reform and conducted training at the United Nations on a human rights based approach to the CRPD. She also advises the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and United Nations Population Fund’s (UNFPA) law reform initiatives. She has published widely on gender and law reform in United Nations publications and law review journals.
Dr. de Silva de Alwis has a doctorate in law from Harvard Law School and has been a Teaching Fellow with the European Law Research Institute at Harvard Law School and a Research Fellow with the Women and Public Policy program at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.