Tina Monshipour Foster

Barbara Olshansky

Jeff L. Hogue

Wilneida Negron

Lisa Riordan Seville

Alexander Karsten

Tina Monshipour Foster is the founder and Executive Director of the International Justice Network (“IJN”), and serves as lead counsel in several of IJN’s legal cases on behalf detainees imprisoned without charge at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan. Ms. Foster’s work on behalf of prisoners and other victims of human rights violations has been featured in major media outlets in the US and abroad, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Harper’s Magazine, Smithsonian, Al Jazeera channel, and others.

From November 2004 to May 2006, Ms. Foster was an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights (“CCR”) and Counsel for CCR’s Guantanamo Global Justice Initiative. Prior to joining CCR, she was a litigation associate at Clifford Chance US LLP and previously served as a law clerk for Hon. Delissa A. Ridgway at the United States Court of International Trade. Ms. Foster is a graduate of Cornell Law School, where she was an editor of the Cornell International Law Journal, and currently serves on the Executive Board of the Cornell Law School Alumni Association. She received her B.A. with honors from Boston University, and is a graduate of BU’s Modern British Studies Program at St. Anne’s College, Oxford University.

In addition to serving as IJN’s Litigation Director, Barbara Olshansky recently joined the faculty of Stanford Law School as the Leah Kaplan Distinguished Professor of Human Rights in March, 2007. Prior to her appointment, Barbara was Deputy Legal Director and Director Counsel of the Global Justice Initiative at the Center for Constitutional Rights, where her docket included class action lawsuits concerning international human rights; immigrants’ rights; race discrimination in employment, education, the environment, and public health; and prisoners’ rights. Prior to joining the Center in 1995, Barbara was a senior attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund where her responsibilities included litigation, policy analysis, advocacy, and lobbying on toxic and solid waste issues, sustainable economic development, and environmental justice. Barbara has also practiced union-side labor and plaintiffs’ employment discrimination law at the law firm of Vladeck, Waldman, Elias & Engelhard, P. C. in New York City. After law school, Barbara clerked for the Honorable Rose Elizabeth Bird, Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court. Barbara received her J.D. from Stanford University, and her two undergraduate degrees, summa cum laude, from the University of Rochester.

Barbara recently co-authored two books: the first, entitled Against War With Iraq, analyzes the international law ramifications of the U.S. decision to pursue unprovoked aggression; and the second, entitled America’s Disappeared, discusses America’s “war on terror” detainees. She has also written three other books, including Secret Trials and Executions, which assesses the military commissions scheduled for Guantánamo detainees; Democracy Detained which examines the secret practices of the U.S. government in the “war on terror” and The Case for Impeachment, which compares the current malfeasance of the Bush Administration with prior presidential administrations against which impeachment investigations were commenced.

Jeff L. Hogue is an IJN board member and IJN’s Technology Director. He is a Supervising Attorney at Legal Assistance of Western New York, Inc., where he provides direct legal representation to low-income residents of western New York. Jeff also serves as the project manager for Legal Services Corporation Technology Initiatives Grant projects which are developing online, interactive interviews that produce pleadings and customized legal information for unrepresented litigants. He has a small technology and design consulting company and has provided technology consulting to several legal providers. He is also serving as one of the upstate LawHelp.org outreach coordinators, and serves on the local Zoning Board of Appeals. He is a graduate of Cornell Law School and the Fulbright College Honors Program at the University of Arkansas.

Wilneida Negron is the Project Coordinator for IJNetwork's Prisoners and Their Families Advocacy Project. She is the Program Coordinator for Lawhelp.org New York where she works on developing informational Know Your Rights Materials for low-income New Yorkers as well as conducts extensive outreach legal advocates and disadvantaged groups in New York. Prior to this Wilneida served 5 years as a Social Worker in several upstate New York organizations where she was responsible for developing and providing the treatment needs of troubled youth and their families. She has completed a Masters in Public Administration from Marist College and is currently a 3rd year Phd Student at the CUNY Graduate Center where her research interests include comparative and transnational ethnic and racial identity, state and social practices of individual and collective identification, and the integration of disadvantaged groups. She has researched housing conditions in Cuba, the brain drain migration in Jamaica, and ethnic tensions in Ireland and the UK and has presented several of her papers in international conferences. Wilneida is a language enthusiast and is able to speak and write in Spanish, Chinese, and French. She is currently studying Arabic.

Lisa Riordan Seville is IJNetwork's Communications Associate. Prior to IJNetwork she worked at Lapham's Quarterly in New York City, Counterpoint Press in Berkeley, California, and conducted research and investigative work for criminal defense cases in the San Francisco Bay Area. She graduated with honors from the Universtiy of California at Berkeley with a dual degree in English and Art Practice.

Alexander Karsten was IJNetwork's first Human Rights Fellow. He graduated from the University of Buffalo law school, and is now an attorney at the Empire Justice Center in Rochester, New York. He continues to work with IJNetwork on several projects.

Former Staff:

Alix Reid was IJN's first Development Director. She is a certified mediator at the Center for Conflict Resolution in Chicago and works in the publishing industry. Prior to moving to the midwest, Alix was the Editorial Director, Vice President, and Director of Foreign Acquisitions at HarperCollins Children's Books in New York, where she published many critically acclaimed and award-winning books for young adults. She holds masters degrees in English literature from Harvard University and the University of Michigan, and a B.A. in English and history from Williams College, where she graduated magna cum laude and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.