Olivia’s academic and work experiences center around international politics and social justice, with a particular interest in advocating for people standing up against state and corporate abuses of power. At UPenn, she interned with the International Rescue Committee, where she assisted refugees and asylees as they resettled in New York, including many young Afghan men who were granted Special Immigrant Visas for their work with the U.S. government in Afghanistan.
In 2019, she moved to Oaxaca, Mexico for a few months where she worked with a microfinance NGO and taught English to indigenous Zapotec women who made tapestries and rugs, and who only redeemed about five percent of profits due to corruption and exploitation. A year later, Olivia pursued a Master’s degree in International Relations at the London School of Economics and focused her dissertation on how alienation from the national community can lead to radicalization, focusing on the context of young Salvadoran migrants who joined a criminal gang in Southern California.
As a Gould student, Olivia is a member of Hale Moot Court, and last year she was the recipient of the Peter A. Kezirian Fellowship in Public International Law, which funded her 1L summer internship at the United Nations war crimes court (officially the Residual Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals) in The Hague. Olivia worked in the Office of the Prosecutor, where she assisted the Appeals Counsel on prosecutions for war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity originating from both the Yugoslav Wars and the Rwandan genocide.
“While human rights rightfully focus on securing compliance with common standards of human dignity, access to justice and equality, it also facilitates a greater understanding and acceptance for the incredible diversity of human experiences. Balancing the interests of the local with the global is an intellectual problem that greatly interests me.”