About the Human Rights Watch HIV/AIDS Program

Joseph Amon is the director of the HIV/AIDS program at Human Rights Watch. Before joining Human Rights Watch, Dr. Amon worked for fifteen years conducting public health research, designing programs, and evaluating health interventions in Africa, the Caribbean, and Eastern Europe. He has worked for a number of organizations, including: the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Family Health International, The Futures Group, and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. Dr. Amon has a PhD in epidemiology and an MSPH degree in tropical medicine.

Diederik Lohman is a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch with a specialization on Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. He was director of Human Rights Watch’s Moscow office from 1997 to 2002. He has conducted extensive research on and written about the conflict in Chechnya, police abuses in Russia, and initiation abuses in the Russian armed forces. He is founder of Russian Justice Initiative (previously Chechnya Justice Initiative), an organization that helps victims of the conflict in Chechnya seek justice through domestic institutions in Russian and the European Court of Human Rights. In a personal capacity, he acts as representative before the European Court for about a dozen applicants from the North Caucasus. He has a background in Russian studies and international law.
Clara Presler works as the Associate for the HIV/AIDS Division at Human Rights Watch. Previously, she was an intern in HRW’s Women’s Rights Division, where she carried out research on Latin America. Clara worked for the League of Conservation Voters’ grassroots presidential campaign in 2004 as Field Director in Portland, Oregon. She has done field research in Galicia, Spain, conducting an oral history project about the impact of fascism on Spain’s regional folklore. Clara received a B.A. in History from Carleton College, where she focused on Middle Eastern, Latin American, and Modern European history.
Rebecca Schleifer works as a researcher in the HIV/AIDS and Human Rights Program.  She has conducted research and advocacy on government restrictions on HIV/AIDS information to youth and harm reduction services to injection drug users; access to HIV prevention and other post-rape services to survivors of sexual violence; and abuses against people living with and at high risk of HIV/AIDS in the United States, Bangladesh, South Africa, Jamaica, Ukraine, and Thailand.  Prior to joining Human Rights Watch, she worked with migrant farmworkers in Florida and Washington, litigating cases on wages and working conditions, and conducting advocacy regarding pesticide issues. Rebecca has graduate degrees in law and public health.
Georgette Gagnon an international human rights lawyer, is Deputy Director of the Africa Division of Human Rights Watch.  She leads a team of international researchers who conduct fact-finding investigations into human rights abuses in countries throughout sub-Saharan Africa, and publish reports that expose abusive governments and non-state actors to their citizens and the world.
           
Before joining Human Rights Watch, Ms. Gagnon served with the United Nations and other international organizations in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Rwanda and worked with the Canadian International Development Agency on projects to strengthen human rights and the rule of law in China and India. She has co-authored several reports and a forthcoming book on natural resource development, conflict and human rights. Ms. Gagnon practiced law in Toronto following her call to the Bar of Ontario in 1986 and in 1998 obtained her LL.M with Distinction in International Human Rights Law from the University of Essex in the U.K.  In 2003, Ms. Gagnon received the Honourable Walter S. Tarnopolsky Human Rights Award given to a resident of Canada who has made an outstanding contribution to international or domestic human rights.