Human Rights Minor Wins Deans' Award for Academic Achievement

Maya Lorey is a senior majoring in Human Biology with a minor in Human Rights. At Stanford, she designed a unique, interdisciplinary framework for her studies and focused on women’s health and rights in conflict and post-conflict settings. As a junior, Maya completed a tutorial in Human Rights Law at Oxford University. For her Human Biology senior synthesis paper on the systematic use of rape as a weapon of war, Maya analyzes the impact of international and domestic courts on Rwandan Genocide rape survivors and proposes non-judicial justice mechanisms for Rohingya refugee women.

Professor David Cohen, Director of the Handa Center, writes that, “Her motivation arises from commitment to the underlying issues and a commitment to do justice to their complexity and importance.” 

Maya believes that philanthropy plays an instrumental role in dismantling systems of injustice and inequality. Last summer, Maya was a Sand Hill Fellow at the Skoll Foundation and next quarter she will be a TA for “Theories of Civil Society, Philanthropy and the Nonprofit Sector.” Maya received the President’s Award for Academic Excellence in her Freshman Year. She also received an international award for her academic writing. Maya serves as the Undergraduate Representative on the Board of Trustees Development Committee and sits on the WSD HANDA Center for Human Rights and International Justice student advisory board.  Professor Tanya Luhrmann calls Maya, “not just an excellent student, but a student who has become someone who actively engages in the world and has become someone intellectually trained to think deeply and wisely about that engagement.”  

Next year, Maya is excited to continue her work in philanthropy and human rights as a Tom Ford Philanthropy Fellow. 

The Deans' Award recognizes up to ten undergraduates per year for their outstanding academic contributions.