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Mayar Darawsha Mayar Darawsha is a J.S.D. candidate from Arrabah City, Israel. Before attending Cornell, Mayar obtained her LL.B. degree from Tel-Aviv University. During her LL.B. she worked as a teaching assistant with Professor Eliav Lieblich in Public International Law course for 4 consecutive terms. Mayar also worked as a corporate lawyer in Israel for two years at Herzog Fox & Ne’eman and Amit Pollak Matalon law firms. Mayar also served as an editor in the Cornell International Law Journal (ILJ). Mayar is fluent in Arabic, Hebrew, and English.
Mayar obtained two CALI Awards in Public International Law and Political Obligation courses.
Research interests
Laws of Armed Conflict and the Use of Force
International Human Rights Law
Political Theory
Dissertation Committee
Muna Ndulo (Chair)
Jens David Ohlin
Contact Information
Email: md968@cornell.edu
Phone: (607) 262-4515 -
Upasana Singh is a J.S.D. candidate at the Cornell Law School. Her research examines the institutionalization of restorative justice in the American criminal justice system, focusing on responses by state agencies once the harm is done. She also studies implementation methods to uncover how RJ related reforms are translated into lasting institutional practices. She is also working as a research assistant with Dr. Kaushik Basu, Carl Marks Professor of International Studies at Cornell University. She holds an LL.M. from Cornell Law School with a focus on conflict resolution and restorative justice. She serves on the review board of the Indian Law Institute Law Review. She is also a Reppy Fellow with the Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies.
Prior to this, she served as an Assistant Professor of Law in India and practiced as an advocate in the Supreme Court of India and the High Court of Delhi.
Upasana is also a certified mediator, holding credentials from the London School of Mediation, UK, and the High Court of Delhi, India. She is the founder of Accords International, an organization committed to shaping the next generation of mediators and restorative justice facilitators.
Other Academic Qualifications
LL.M. (dual specialization in Human Rights & Criminal Law), Indian Law Institute, New Delhi.
LL.B., Campus Law Centre, Faculty of Law, University of Delhi.
B.A. (Hons.) in History, Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi.Academic Honors & other Recognitions
Cornell Graduate Legal Studies Law Fellowship (2025-26).
Reppy Institute Graduate Fellowship (2025-26).
Cornell Graduate Legal Studies Law Fellowship (2024-25).
Fellowship for Outstanding Work in Mediation Policy, Global Policy Insights.
Award for Distinguished Service in Social Work, Sewa Samarpan Samiti, India.Dissertation Committee
Professor Jessica Eaglin (Chair)
Professor John H. Blume
Professor Valerie HansResearch Interests
Criminal law and procedure
Juvenile Justice
Victimology
Restorative justice
ADR and alternatives to criminal legal system
Criminal Law, Public Policy, and Governance.Bar Admissions
All India Bar Council
Delhi Bar Council
Supreme Court Bar Association, IndiaContact Information
Email: us58@cornell.edu
LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/upasasingh2490/ -
Ayesha Umana-Dajud Ayesha Umana-Dajud is a doctoral candidate in Science of Law (J.S.D.) at Cornell University, where several institutes, including the Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies recognized her with research fellowships. Her dissertation, titled ‘The Crime of Genocide in International Criminal Law: A Story of Exclusion of Political Identities’, reflects her engagement with critical legal studies and international criminal law. Her academic journey began in Colombia, where she obtained a Bachelor of Law (LL.B.) from the National University, and a Graduate Degrees in Procedural Law and Criminal Law, before earning her LL.M. from Cornell University. Ayesha’s professional experience spans roles at The Office of Public Counsel for the Victims (OPCV) of the International Criminal Court in The Netherlands, at the Special Jurisdiction of Peace – JEP created by the 2016 Peace Agreements with the FARC-EP guerrilla in Colombia, and legal research positions for the Women & Justice Collection of the Legal Information Institute (LII) and The Death Penalty Center in the U.S. After the Peace Agreements signature, Ayesha volunteered in the FARC-EP reintegration settlements to teach alternative mechanism of conflict resolution and took part of missions to report the implementation needs of the Peace Agreements in rural communities. She also has trained Afro-Descendant leaders in the Pacific rainforest in Human Rights protection mechanisms, led a process of formalization of land ownership of farmers in the Andes, was the lead council in a land restitution process between an Hydroelectric and forced displaced farmers, and worked in previous consultation processes with Indigenous communities in the Línea Negra. Recently, she contributed to strategic litigation at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on the advisory opinion on “Climate Change emergency and Human Rights” (2023) and drafted a report on women on death row, which triggered a joint communication from three UN Special Rapporteurs and two Working Groups to the Tanzanian government.
Dissertation Committee
Muna Ndulo (chair)
Sandra Babcock
Elizabeth BrundigeResearch Interests
International Criminal Law
Human Rights
Transitional Justice
International Humanitarian Law
Decolonizing StudiesContact information
Email: yu29@cornell.edu
LinkedIn : Ayesha Umaña Dajud -
Yiang Zhu is a J.S.D. candidate from Shanghai, China. His research focuses on evictions within Chinese communities in the U.S., aiming to uncover how social norms influence the dynamic between landlords and tenants in lease disputes.
Yiang earned his LL.B. from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2023 and his LL.M. from Cornell Law School in 2024. During his LL.B., he served as a research assistant on empirical studies of private lending cases and civil litigation rates. At Cornell, Yiang serves as the Eisenberg Research Fellow specializing in empirical legal studies. He received CALI Awards in Contracts and Legal Writing courses and delivered the 2024 Law School Convocation speech.
Dissertation Committee
Yun-chien Chang (Chair)
Research Interests
Property Law
Law and Society
Law and Economics
Empirical Legal StudiesContact Information
Email: yz2962@cornell.edu
Phone: (607) 262-7564 -
Kuan-Ting Chen is a J.S.D. student at Cornell Law School from Kaohsiung, Taiwan. He also holds an LL.M. from Cornell Law School. His research focuses on the openness of legal reasoning in private law, exploring why and how private law reasoning should incorporate insights from foreign disciplines and foreign legal systems. Prior to joining Cornell, Kuan-Ting earned his LL.B. and LL.M. from National Taiwan University and was admitted to the Ph.D. program at National Chengchi University in 2022. He worked as a research assistant at Academia Sinica, Taiwan’s premier research institution, where he published several journal articles on topics such as the legal normativity, comparative law, and legal reasoning. During this period, he also co-authored two amicus curiae briefs submitted to the Taiwan Constitutional Court, one of which was cited in a Taiwan Constitutional Court’s judgment. At Cornell, he received CALI Awards in comparative private law.
Selected Publications
Kuan-Ting Chen. (2025 accepted). A Rawlsian Critic on Stability Problem of Public Reason: Same-Sex Marriage Debates in Taiwan as an Example, In East meets West: Justice, Law, And Politics’: The Theme of IVRJ 2023, edited by Makoto Usami & Hidehiko Adachi. Stuttgart, Germany: Franz Steiner Verlag.
Kuan-Ting Chen and Yun-Chien Chang. (2024). How to Do Legal Interpretation with Comparative Law: A Methodological Reflection and Reconstruction. National Taiwan University Law Journal 53(2). (Top-tier journal indexed in TSSCI, in Chinese)
Kuan-Ting Chen. (2024). On the Privacy Discourse about Decriminalization of Adultery and the Interpretation No.791: Through the lens of James Q. Whitman’s Two Western Cultures of Privacy, The Constitutional Review 48(2): 243-279. (in Chinese)
Kuan-Ting Chen. (2024). No Compensation for Adultery? How and Why does Interpretation No.791 affect the Liability of Adultery, The Constitutional Review 47(4): 603-629. (in Chinese)
Yun-chien Chang and Kuan-Ting Chen. (2024). Empirical Legal Studies: Retrospect and Prospect, In Taiwan’s Legal Studies in Retrospect and a Review of Their Social Impacts 2001–2020 (I), edited by Chen-Jung Chan, Ching-Yi Liu & Wen-Tsong Chiou. pp.109–131. Taipei: Angle. (in Chinese)
Kuan-Ting Chen. (2023). The Tyranny of Efficiency: A Critical Review on the Methodological Thesis in Professor Yun-chien Chang’s Interpreting Private Law: A Social Scientific Approach, Academia Sinica Law Journal 32: 277-312. (Top-tier journal indexed in TSSCI, in Chinese)
Kuan-Ting Chen. (2022). Out of the Legal Thinking? Debating Cost-Benefit Analysis in lieu of Proportionality Principle, In Jurisprudential Imagination: Festschrift for Hon. Yeong-Chin Su, Vol.4: pp. 441–459. Taipei, Taiwan: Angle. (in Chinese)
Kuan-Ting Chen. (2020). The Absence of the Mental State in the Theory of Legal Normativity: A Reflection on Hart’s and Raz’s Theories, Academia Sinica Law Journal 27: 345-406. (Top-tier journal indexed in TSSCI, in Chinese)
Amicus Curiae Briefs
Co-author, Brief of Empirical Legal Studies Research Center, Institutum Iurisprudentiae, Academia Sinica as Amicus Curiae to the Taiwan Constitutional Court (2024) (Case No. 111-Hsien-Min-904052) (in Chinese).
Co-author, Brief of Empirical Legal Studies Research Center, Institutum Iurisprudentiae, Academia Sinica as Amicus Curiae to the Taiwan Constitutional Court (2023) (Case No. Hui-Tai-9433) (in Chinese).
Research Interests
- Jurisprudence
- Legal Reasoning
- Comparative Legal Studies
- Private Law Theory
Contact Information
Email: kc2283@cornell.edu
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Michelle du Plessis joined Cornell Law School’s J.S.D. program in 2025. Her research examines how international commercial law and conflict of laws frameworks (choice of law and jurisdiction) interact with decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and smart contracts.
Michelle earned her LL.M. at Cornell in 2024 as a Fulbright Scholar, receiving multiple CALI Awards and the Harry G. Henn Memorial Prize. She previously completed B.Com Law and LL.B. degrees at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, was an exchange scholar at Leiden University, in the Netherlands, and interned at the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH). At Cornell, she served as a General Editor of the Cornell International Law Journal.
Before returning to academia, Michelle practiced at White & Case LLP in Johannesburg and New York, advising private equity sponsors, lenders, and corporates on cross-border corporate and debt-finance transactions. Earlier, she was an Academic Associate in the University of Pretoria’s Private Law Department for the delict and property law courses, and co-authored peer-reviewed publications on equality law and legal education. She is an admitted Attorney of the High Court of South Africa and has passed the New York State Bar Exam (admission pending).
Awards and Fellowships:
- Cornell Law School Fellowship: J.S.D., Cornell Law
- Fulbright U.S. Foreign Student Scholarship: LL.M., Cornell Law
- E.O. International Peace Scholarship: LL.M., Cornell Law
- Cornell Law School Tuition Scholarship: LL.M., Cornell Law
- Harry G. Henn Memorial Prize, Cornell Law: Highest grade, Business Organizations
- CALI Awards, Cornell Law: Digital Assets; Advanced FinTech Writing; Business Organizations
- Allan Gray Orbis Foundation Scholarship: B.Com Law, LL.B., University of Pretoria
- Abe Bailey Travel Bursary: South African national scholar
- Leiden University–South Africa Scholarship: Undergraduate exchange semester
Select Publications and Conferences:
- Choice of Law of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), Berger International Speaker Series, Cornell Law (2024).
- Looking for SPACs in South Africa, Without Prejudice (Q4 2021).
- The Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act 4 of 2000: Proposals for Legislative Reform to Promote Equality through Schools and the Education System, Erasmus Law Review 13(3): 49–64 (2020) (co-author).
Dissertation Committee
Professor James Grimmelmann (Chair)
Research Interests:
- International Commercial Law;
- Conflict of Laws (choice of law, jurisdiction, judgment recognition);
- Law & Technology;
- DAOs and smart contract governance;
- Digital assets;
- Cross-border enforcement and dispute design.
Contact Information
Email: md2243@cornell.edu
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/m-du-plessis/