Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee

Shikha is a lawyer and researcher. Her research and writing takes an interdisciplinary and transnational perspective in understanding the capacity and limitations of the law to address systematic violence for marginalized communities, with a focus on women and labour migrants. Shikha holds a BA in English and Ethnicity, Race, and Migration from Yale University, a JD and Certificate in Global Human Rights from University of Pennsylvania Law School, and is pursuing a PhD in Jurisprudence and Social Policy from University of California, Berkeley. Shikha’s work is informed by more than a decade of experience working with grassroots campaigns and civil society organizations in the U.S. and South Asia, using legal, research, media and community organizing approaches. Shikha has been an Ella Baker fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, and a Fulbright Fellow at Swayam. She has worked with numerous organizations in South Asia including Human Rights Law Network, Jan Sahas Social Development Society, PRADAN, the Society for Labour and Development, and Women’s Fund Asia. In 2015, Shikha jointly founded HELM Social Design Studio, the first social design studio in South Asia dedicated to partnering with human rights defenders and their organizations to ideate, fund, and build social design solutions that promote human rights and access to justice. You can follow Shikha’s work on Twitter @shikhaphone and access her research publications at https://berkeley.academia.edu/ShikhaSillimanBhattacharjee.