GC Europe Staff
Our team is led by the master’s program director and is comprised of academic and administrative staff members. They ensure smooth implementation of the programme including coordination of teaching faculty, student support during the Venice-based semester and the mobility semester, and compliance with policies and regulations.

EMA Programme Director
Dr. Orla Ní Cheallacháin
Dr Orla Ní Cheallacháin joined the Global Campus as EMA Programme Director in 2021. She is responsible for the operational and academic management of the programme, student support, and liaison with the network of EMA professors and other stakeholders.
She is also responsible for teaching the International Relations Rolling Seminar, academic skills, research methods and thesis proposal workshops in addition to other teaching contributions throughout the first semester.
Orla holds a PhD in Politics and International Relations from University College Dublin, an MSc (Econ) in Terrorism and International Relations from Aberystwyth University, and a Postgraduate Certificate in Social Research Skills with a specialism in researching violently divided societies from the University of Ulster. She holds a BA in History and Language and Cultural Studies (Italian) from University College Cork.
Orla’s doctoral research comprised a critical discourse analysis of emergency counterterrorism debates in the United Kingdom with a view to understanding the politics of crisis legislating over time and how human rights are protected during times of crisis. The project analysed how terrorism was conceptualised by the legislature when introducing, renewing or expanding counterterrorism law and examined the legislature’s role in the normalisation of emergency powers. The project compared conceptualisations of terrorism during the Northern Ireland conflict and the so-called ‘global war on terror’. She is currently working on several articles informed by her doctoral research.
Orla’s research interests include critical approaches to International Relations and security studies, including feminist approaches, the role of gender in peace and conflict, issues of global justice in relation to the climate and biodiversity crises, and how different ‘ways of knowing’, including the arts, inform knowledge production and expertise.
Before joining the Global Campus, Orla taught courses on International Relations, critical security studies, and gender, peace and conflict at University College Dublin and provided teaching assistance on a range of courses including political theory, comparative politics and research methods. In addition, she worked as a Writing Instructor at the UCD Writing Centre providing tuition on academic writing skills, critical thinking and postgraduate thesis support.
Email: orla.nicheallachain@gchumanrights.org
Tel: +39 041 2720920
Read More

EMA Teaching Fellow
Dr. Zoi Aliozi
Dr. Zoi Aliozi joined the Global Campus of Human Rights in Venice, as EMA Teaching Fellow, in 2021. As part of the academic team of the European Master in Human Rights and Democratization, Zoi performs autonomous teaching and provides academic support and mentoring to students in developing their Master’s thesis research.
Her teaching courses focus on ‘Human rights law and philosophy’; ‘Climate Justice and Human Rights’; and her special practical skills courses on ‘Digital advocacy and communications’, and ‘Legal research skills’. She contributes to the Venice School for Human Rights Defenders, and to the remote learning MOOCs as a human rights educator and climate justice specialist. She is part of the Global Campus’ Policy Advisory program on climate change and human rights.
Zoi is a scholar-activist, a human rights educator, and an award-winning philosopher. Prior to entering academia, she practiced criminal law in Greece, and worked in international human rights cases. For more than a decade she has been engaging with climate justice research and activism—while lecturing law, philosophy, and cinema for human rights education. Zoi holds a PhD in Philosophy, Law and Human Rights from LUISS University of Rome (Italy) and Georgetown University in Washington D.C. (USA).
Her doctoral research thesis focused on state-terrorism and human rights, and won her the 1st award for International Philosophy Researchers. She completed a research Postdoc on Global Constitutionalism at the Irish Center for Human Rights by conducting inter-disciplinary research on international law and ancient Greek philosophy.
She has served as a human rights lecturer in the School of Law, and in the School of Film and Digital Media of NUIG in Ireland where she taught courses such as: ‘human rights for media advocates’, ‘Legal Ethics’, ‘Human rights philosophy’, and ‘Climate justice’. She has taught in the Cinema, Human Rights and Advocacy school courses on ‘Human rights philosophy in cinema’, and is teaching remote courses on ‘Cinema, creative media and Law’ at universities around the globe.
Zoi is an inter-disciplinary scholar, with research interests in human rights law, analytic philosophy, climate justice, digital advocacy communications, cinema for education, and distance learning. She has a special eye for ‘new tech for good’ (IT, AI and digital communications) – as well as a deep passion for visual arts and creative media for legal education and philosophy.
Zoi is an experienced human rights communicator and has been engaging with cyber-activism in the international civil society for more than 2 decades. Parallel to her academic work, she has been offering human rights cyber-advocacy and digital communications consultations to INGOs, and academic institutions.
Email: zoi.aliozi@gchumanrights.org
Tel: +39 041 2720918
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zoialiozi
Read More

Research Manager
Dr. Chiara Altafin
Dr. Chiara Altafin leads various research-based activities and projects at the GC Headquarters, with a primary focus on strengthening research, education, training, network-building and advocacy for the rights of children. Since September 2015 she has also worked as EMA Fellow, and lectures on topics related to human rights, International and European law, coordinates and teaches in the Children’s Rights Cluster, and conducts academic skills, legal research methods and thesis proposal workshops.
Chiara holds a Ph.D in International Law from the European University Institute, an LL.M in Comparative, European and International Law from the EUI, a Master’s in Rule of Law, Democracy and Human Rights from LUISS University, and graduated cum laude at the Law Department of Roma Tre University. She was a visiting research scholar at the Center for International and Comparative Law of the University of Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor. Her main research interests concern economic, social and cultural rights in times of crisis, including in contexts of armed conflict and occupation, children’s rights, business and human rights, social justice, environmental and climate justice, and governance.
Chiara leads the UN Global Study component of the ACRiSL project (2020-2023), focusing on children’s rights affected by migration-related detention. She has also led a project aimed at enacting the Global Study recommendations in the European Context, engaging with ENOC as well as national and regional ombudspersons in Italy. In 2018-2019 she was lead researcher on the situation of ‘children living in prisons with their primary caregivers’ for the UN Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty, and the main author of the related chapter.
Chiara is one of the editors of GC Human Rights Preparedness. Previously she edited the GCHRJ’s first special focus on children’s rights. She coordinated the EMA research contributions to the Global Classroom 2021 and 2020. She contributed to the GC MOOCs on ‘Children Deprived of Liberty’ and ‘Child Participation and the Right to a Sustainable Environment’. In 2016-2017 she was senior researcher on the FP7 FRAME project.
Over the last thirteen years Chiara worked as lecturer and research and teaching assistant in International Law, International Organization and Human Rights, Human Rights and International Protection, International Protection of Cultural Heritage, and International Criminal Law at LUISS University, where she also was a member of the Research Team on the FP7 PRIV-WAR project. She conducted research and editorial activities for IAI (Istituto Affari Internazionali). She worked as a trainee lawyer at Avvocatura Generale dello Stato in Rome (2005-2007) and has been admitted to the Italian Bar.
Email: chiara.altafin@gchumanrights.org
Tel: +39 041 2720919
Read More

EMA Executive Officer
Martina Urbinati
Martina started working for the Global Campus in 2022. She liaises with students for what concerns certificates, general enquiries about the EMA Programme’s structure and other administrative procedures. Additionally, she is responsible for the daily update of EMA’s platform on inter-departmental activities.
Martina holds a MA in Interdisciplinary Research and Studies on Eastern Europe at the University of Bologna. After defending her graduation thesis on the topic of identity and belonging of internally displaced persons in Ukraine, a shortened policy article of the same was published by the Temerty Contemporary Ukraine Program at the University of Harvard.
Before joining the GC, Martina was recruited as cultural mediator to teach Italian language to Ukrainian students. Previously, she worked at the Bologna Business School Foundation in the International Masters department. In her spare time, Martina volunteers for Erasmus+ mobility projects and writes for an online media outlet.
Email: ema.secretariat@gchumanrights.org and martina.urbinati@gchumanrights.org
Tel: +39 041 2720922
Read More

EMA Executive Officer
Elisabetta Zennaro
Elisabetta Zennaro started working for the Global Campus in 2008. She dealt with all departments and assisted guests, students and staff members with all kinds of enquiries. She joined the EMA Team in June 2016. In her role as EMA Executive Officer she liaises with EMA professors and students for all that concerns meetings, certificates and academic records.
She also assists the EMA Programme Director and collaborates with the EMA staff on executive tasks. She deals with students’ records, careers, diplomas, and she is in charge of managing the EMA Internships and EIUC EU-UN Fellowship Programmes.
She previously spent two years in London, UK, working and studying English, photography and attended a Galileo Travel Consultant course; she also spent a year in Zaragoza, Spain, for a study project organized by Ca’ Foscari University of Venice.
Email: ema.secretariat@gchumanrights.org and elisabetta.zennaro@gchumanrights.org
Tel: +39 041 2720921
Read More