Maria oversees CESR’s programmatic work and team and leads our collaborative efforts to advance a Rights-Based Economy. Her experience of working over the last fifteen years on the right to education, privatization, and tax justice in various countries is invaluable for our efforts to build bridges between movements and groups working on human rights, economic and climate justice. Before joining our team, Maria coordinated the Tax and Education Alliance, a partnership of international and regional tax justice and education constituencies. The Alliance aims to make a transformative breakthrough in the domestic financing of public education through progressive tax reforms and builds members’ capacities to undertake collaborative research and advocacy. Maria has previously worked for ActionAid International, the Right to Education Project, Human Rights Watch, and the Universities of London (Birkbeck) Roehampton, and Bielefeld. She holds a Ph.D. in Education and Human Development from Bielefeld University, an MSc in Human Rights from the London School of Economics,  an LLM in Fundamental Rights from Universidad Carlos III, and a Diploma in Education from UC Berkeley.

Laura guides CESR's financial strategies. Her expertise spans across strategic planning, financial management, and operational efficiency, ensuring the organization's sustainable financial growth and robust framework. Laura's background includes key roles such as Finance and Operations Director at Liberty (National Council for Civil Liberties), and earlier positions at Rice Search Partners Ltd. and Rice & Dore Associates Ltd., where she led business administration efforts. Working on a freelance basis for CESR, she applies her vast experience to enhance our mission, focusing on financial health.

With more than 15 years as a human rights advocate, Mahinour’s work focuses on utilizing international human rights law as a practical tool to decode how the current global economic model produces intersectional injustices and to find, together with partners, inspiring pathways for change. Her passion lies in building bridges and creating cross-field strategies with social movements, CSOs, and decision-makers to mobilize collective power through a rights-based agenda to transform the global economic system towards a de-colonial, green, and gender-just economy that works for the people and the planet. Before joining CESR, Mahinour worked at several human rights organizations on debt and development issues, tax, and environmental justice on the national and regional levels in the SWANA region. She also worked as Senior Programs & Research Officer at the Law & Society Research Unit at American University Cairo, where she helped build the Unit’s strategy and oversaw the implementation of its work on law, society, and human rights in post-revolutionary Egypt. She holds a BA in political science and an MA in international human rights law from the same university.

Ohene provides research and advocacy support across several CESR projects, with a particular focus on embedding human rights into agendas for economic transformation and strengthening our collaborative work around assessing rights fulfillment. Ohene’s background in law, journalism and his knowledge of critical race theory and intersectionality boost our efforts to transform current narratives around the economy and dismantle the inequalities that sustain them. Before joining CESR, Ohene was a Law Clerk at South Africa’s Constitutional Court and a fellow at Sonke Gender Justice where he engaged in advocacy related to gender-based violence drafting releases, making parliamentary submissions, engaging in strategic litigation, and facilitating workshops. He also worked as a writer for Ground Up (a news website that covers stories on human rights and social justice issues in South Africa). He is a qualified attorney from the University of Cape Town (2013) and recently completed an LLM at UCLA with specializations in Public Interest Law and Policy and Critical Race Studies.

Auska manages the narratives and messages by which CESR communicates its work around the globe. Her previous experience in creating communication strategies for social and political reforms in Latin America strengthens CESR’s mission to envision a new economic system through the power of stories. Before joining us, Auska served as general coordinator and communications manager at the NGO Ciudadanía Inteligente, she worked as a researcher on journalism and media practices for Universidad Católica de Valparaíso and TVN, and as a reporter at Radio Cooperativa. She holds an MPhil in Sociology of Media and Culture from the University of Cambridge, an MSc in Democracy and Comparative Politics from University College London, and a BA in Journalism (Universidad Católica de Chile).

Rebecca manages CESR’s development plan, constantly strengthening our fundraising efforts, and plays a key role in the implementation of our monitoring, learning, and evaluation framework. She received a Bachelor's degree from SUNY Albany, where she majored in Sociology and minored in English, and a Master's degree in Sociology from the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Brooklyn College, where her studies focused on gender.

Matt develops research and analysis at the intersection of climate justice and tax justice, contributing significantly to our understanding and approach to these critical issues. His current projects involve creating accessible resources that shed light on pivotal developments at the United Nations, including the intricacies of the UN Tax Convention and the efforts towards establishing a Loss and Damage Fund. These resources aim to demystify complex international legal frameworks, making them understandable and actionable for a broad audience. Matthew graduated in 2018 from the University of Mississippi with a degree in international studies. His capstone thesis explored the dynamics of South-South Development between China and Latin America, offering him unique insights into the geopolitical and economic relationships that shape global development patterns. Pursuing further specialization, Matthew earned his J.D. from New York University Law School in 2023, where he delved into international human rights law. His time at NYU Law was marked by a deep commitment to understanding how legal mechanisms can be leveraged to protect and promote human rights on a global scale. Matthew's blend of expertise in international studies and human rights law, combined with his focused research on climate and tax justice, positions him as a key contributor to our efforts.