Ramya Jawahar Kudekallu is a human rights practitioner and clinical educator of law. Her research and advocacy focuses on anti-discrimination frameworks within International Human Rights Law. Her writing and public conversations include an examination of prejudice and situational vulnerability, particularly how constructs of identity such as gender, race, caste, religion etc contribute to communities being targets of violence and discrimination. 

Ramya’s work in the Human Rights and Atrocity Prevention Clinic is carried out in close collaboration with civil society organizations, community partners, social justice advocates, and rights-holders. She brings a critical, movement-informed approach to the Human Rights and Atrocity Prevention Clinic, grounded in a commitment to justice that challenges the global power structures shaping international human rights law. Her pedagogy includes an interrogation of the economic and political inequalities that marginalize communities face, and exploring how contested constructs of identity, class, citizenship, etc, threaten erasure of rights, and can serve as precursors to mass atrocities. 

Ramya holds an LL.M. in International Law and Justice from Fordham School of Law, where she was offered the prestigious Crowley Fellowship at the Leitner Center for International Law and Justice. In that role, she co-taught a seminar on human rights scholarship and led clinic projects with students focused on labor rights, gender-based discrimination, and access to justice. 

Prior to her work in the U.S., Ramya practiced at the Alternative Law Forum, a distinguished collective of human rights lawyers in India. There, her work focused on gender justice and civil liberties, with a particular emphasis on the rights of sex workers and legal representation for the LGBTIQ community at a time when homosexuality was criminalized in the country. Her research and litigation efforts have consistently centered the voices of marginalized communities while advancing intersectional strategies for social and legal change. 

As part of her early professional journey, Ramya also worked with the World YWCA in Geneva, Switzerland, contributing to global advocacy efforts on gender justice and young women in political leadership. She is also a co-founder of the International Youth Alliance for Family Planning (IYAFP), a youth-led global organization that champions access to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) as a fundamental human right. 

Ramya earned her law degree from Bishop Cotton Women’s Christian Law College in India, one of the few all-women’s law institutions in Asia, which she believes played a formative role in shaping her commitment to public interest law. She credits a supportive learning environment for instilling the values of solidarity, critical inquiry, and community-rooted advocacy that continue to inform her work today. 

Her current areas of research and writing are on caste, race, citizenship, and the implications of artificial intelligence technology for vulnerable groups. She teaches a Race, Citizenship, and Human rights seminar course in the Spring.