Elisa Massimino serves as Chair of FP4A’s Nominations and Governance Committee. She is Executive Director of the Human Rights Institute at Georgetown University Law Center, where she recently served as the Robert F. Drinan, S.J., Chair in Human Rights, and is a senior fellow in national security and international policy at the Center for American Progress. Before joining the Georgetown faculty, Ms. Massimino was a senior fellow with the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a practitioner-in-residence at Georgetown’s Walsh School of Foreign Service. Previously, Ms. Massimino spent 27 years—the last decade as president and CEO—at Human Rights First, one of the nation’s leading human rights advocacy organizations.
Ms. Massimino has a distinguished record of human rights advocacy in Washington. She has testified before Congress dozens of times; writes frequently for mainstream publications and specialized journals; appears in major media outlets; and speaks to audiences around the country. During her leadership at Human Rights First, the influential Washington publication The Hill consistently named her one of the most effective public advocates in the country.
Ms. Massimino is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the U.S. Supreme Court Bar. She holds a law degree from the University of Michigan, a Master’s in philosophy from Johns Hopkins University, and is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Trinity University where she was recently recognized with the Distinguished Alumni Award. Follow her on X at @ecmassimino.
Explore some of Ms. Massimino’s recent commentary:
- Podcast: Chutzpah and humility are the twin virtues of the work of making change, The Battles We Pick, 5/14/2023
- Guantanamo has become America’s cage, CNN, October 4, 2022
- The War isn’t over, but Ukraine is already prosecuting Russian crimes, Washington Post, April 28, 2022
- Rethinking DHS to prioritize human security and homeland services, The Hill, June 17, 2021
- America’s hypocrisy on democracy and human rights has a cost, Washington Post, June 16, 2021
- Protecting Ethiopian Refugees—and Averting the Next Crisis, Just Security, December 9, 2020
- A Rights-Centered Paradigm for Protecting the Forcibly Displaced (with Alexandra Schmitt), Center for American Progress, December 7, 2020
- A Radically (Modest) Bureaucratic Proposal to Strengthen Democracy and Human Rights at Home and Abroad, (with Rob Berschinski), Just Security, October 30, 2020
- Official Catholic teaching requires absolute opposition to capital punishment as an offense against human dignity. So why is a Catholic group honoring the man solely responsible for the revival of federal executions, Medium, September 23, 2020
- It’s official: In Egypt, you can now get 15 years in jail for a tweet, Washington Post, August 31, 2020
- Pompeo’s new commission undermines universal human rights — just as planned, (with Alexandra Schmitt), Washington Post, July 17, 2020
- Human rights lessons of the pandemic, (with Alexandra Schmitt), The Hill, April 24, 2020