Chen Dong has worked for most of his career in the city of Urumqi in northwestern China. First as a public servant in the Urumqi Department of Justice and now as the director of the Urumqi Legal Aid Center, Chen has remained directly involved in enhancing the legal aid system in his adopted city. He also volunteers in several legal and social services organizations, including as a council member of the All China Lawyers' Association, the standing director of the Urumqi Lawyers' Association, the commissioner of the Urumqi Youth Committee, and a counselor for the Urumqi Consumer Protection Council. He is a graduate of the Northwest University of Politics & Law in Xi'an and the Capital University of Economics and Trade in Beijing. During his fellowship, he will be working on a project related to strengthening the legal aid system in China.

Kolawole Ogunbiyi, Nigeria

Kolawole Ogunbiyi is a Staff Attorney with the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO) in Lagos, Nigeria. At CLO, he acts as the coordinator of a network of pro bono lawyers who provide free legal assistance. He is very involved in prison reforms in Nigeria and has secured the release of more than 400 inmates held in pretrial detention. Kolawole received his LLB with honors from the University of Ilorin in Kwara State, Nigeria in 2003 and was licensed to practice law in 2004. While a PILI fellow, Kolawole will be investigating the use of community service as an alternative to imprisonment in America and its potential as a practice in Nigeria.

Rabin Subedi, Nepal

Rabin Subedi has been an active advocate in Nepal since he received his license in 1997. His areas of practice are very broad and he has had several cases heard before the Nepal Supreme Court. Recently, the Supreme Court of Nepal rendered a verdict over one of his cases that requires the government to respect the rights of transgendered people. As the legal director of the non-profit Water and Energy Users' Federation of Nepal (WAFED), Subedi has filed a number of cases at the Supreme Court of Nepal pursuing people's rights to natural resources, especially water. He received his LLB and LLM degrees in law, and more recently a Masters in Political Science, from Tribhuvan University. Aside from his advocacy work, Subedi is also a faculty member at St. Xavier's College and has been teaching paralegal studies, human rights and labor legislation to students pursuing degrees in social work. His project as a PILI Fellow will be to create an advocacy strategy for promoting access to natural resources among rural and poor peoples in Nepal as well as informing them about their rights to access. 

Magdalena Ustaborowicz, Poland

Magdalena Ustaborowicz is a PhD candidate at the University of Lodz in Poland. For the past four years, she has been involved in the University's legal clinics, and currently acts as the supervisor of the Student Legal Information Center. She also worked as an administrator in the Children's Rights Clinic. She will be working on developing a Polish-language study of legal clinics to enhance the legal clinical movement in Poland. Ustaborowicz is participating in PILI's Fellowship program through her Kosciuszko Foundation educational fellowship.

Ye Xiaoqin, China

Ye Xiaoqin is a lecturer on Criminal Law and Criminology at Wuhan University School of Law and the Executive Head of Women's Rights Department of Center for Protection of the Rights of Disadvantaged Citizens of Wuhan University. Her academic research is focused on a variety of criminal law issues and frameworks, as well as women's rights law and theory. She also works part-time as a practicing attorney at a local law firm and is the Secretary General of the Ma Ke-chang Jurisprudence Foundation. During her fellowship, Xiaoqin will develop a project on protection of human rights through public interest litigation and the criminal justice system.

Sawsan Zaher, Israel

Sawsan Zaher is a staff attorney at Adalah: The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel. Having worked with Adalah since 2005, she specializes in social and economic rights and education for the Arab minority in Israel. Before Adalah, she established and coordinated the Kayan Organization's legal department, where she currently holds a position as a member of the board. She is an active member of numerous human rights and feminist organizations. Zaher received an LLM in International Legal Studies with an emphasis on international human rights law and gender from the Washington College of Law at American University. She will be conducting a research project during her fellowship on the theoretical legal background of indirect discrimination in the areas of social and economic rights to inform her work in Israel.