Postdoctoral Fellows

 

Dr. Thalia Thereza Assan is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Child and Youth Rights Program. She has a Bachelor’s in Sociology and Anthropology and the Multidisciplinary Program in the Humanities and a Master’s in Socio-Cultural Anthropology, both from Tel Aviv University. She has a PhD in Sociology from the University of Edinburgh, where she received a fully funded scholarship. She has also won the Israeli Anthropological Association’s 2019 Max Gluck Memorial Prize for Best Master’s Dissertation.

Dr. Assan’s research interests include children and young people’s personal relationships and activism, education, qualitative methods and research ethics. Her doctoral project interrogated how the friendships of Black girls and girls of colour in Scotland were affected by, contended with and challenged structural inequalities. Her postdoctoral project examines how Israeli children and youth’s personal relationship shape their collective activism for the right to life, survival and development in the context of armed conflicts and socio-political crises. She is currently involved in two additional research projects: The first project is led by researchers at the Hebrew University and the Free University of Berlin and studies how youth climate activists from different countries negotiate conflicts online. The second project is undertaken together with researchers at the Open University of Israel and explores citizenship education at school from the perspective of young people.

Dr. Assan has published her work in academic outlets such as The Sociological Review and Children & Society. She has presented her work at international conferences and disseminated it to the public through social media and blogs. She has significant experience in working and volunteering with children and young people in both formal and informal educational settings.  

 

 

Dr. Noy Naaman is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Child and Youth Rights Program at the Minerva Center for Human Rights. His fields of research are family law and children’s rights, bioethics, the jurisprudence of sexuality, and critical legal theories. His scholarship integrates legal studies with theoretical frameworks from the humanities, including queer theories, social theories of time, critical border studies, and affect theory. It employs both normative-theoretical methods and empirical qualitative research.

His scholarship has been published in leading journals such as the American Journal of Comparative Law, Washington University Law Review, Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities, Harvard Journal of Law & Gender, and Tel-Aviv University Law Review (Iyunei Mishpat). His research has been cited by the Israeli Supreme Court and the Tel Aviv District Court in landmark cases. He has received numerous awards and honors, including the Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellowship, the Human Rights Fellowship from Columbia Law School, the Icon-S-il Prize for Research in Public Law, the Ontario Trillium Scholarship, the Connaught International Scholarship, the Sarah Weddington Writing Prize for Scholarship in Reproductive Rights, the Graduate Fellowship in Reproductive Rights and the David Rayside Graduate Student Award from the University of Toronto.

Before joining the Child and Youth Rights Program, he was a postdoctoral researcher at Yale Law School and Berkeley Law. He holds an LLB from Tel Aviv University, an LLM from Columbia Law School, and an SJD from the University of Toronto, with certificates in the collaborative programs of law and sexual diversity studies as well as law and Jewish studies.

 

 

Dr. Noa Levy is a post-doctoral fellow at the Child and Youth Rights Program at the Minerva Center for Human Rights, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She researches children and youth’s forced migrations in African contexts and currently focuses on asylum-seeking children and youth in Israel. Noa uses qualitative methods and emphasizes children’s participation in her studies. She holds a PhD from the Department of Politics and Government at Ben Gurion University and works under the guidance of Prof. Tali Gal and Prof. Laura Lundy.

 

 

Dr. Heba Zedan is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the Child and Youth Rights Program at the Minerva Center for Human Rights, Faculty of Law. She has earned both a bachelor's and master's degree in social work, specializing in trauma, from the Hebrew University. During her Ph.D. studies in social work, Dr. Zedan was recognized for her excellence with the prestigious President's Scholarship for outstanding doctoral students at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Her research focuses on understanding socio-political determinants of mental health and violence perpetration among parents and children in the Palestinian society in Israel. Her doctoral research has been dedicated to examining the impact of sociopolitical stress factors (e.g., interpersonal racism, collective racism, and minority stress) on family violence perpetration, including intimate partner violence and child maltreatment among Palestinians in Israel. Additionally, her work has explored resilience and risk factors as moderating and mediating variables in this relationship.

So far, her doctoral research has yielded four academic articles, two of which have been published in leading social sciences journals while two others are currently under review. Dr. Zedan's current post-doctoral research focuses on exploring intersectional minority stress and coping experiences in sociocultural and sociopolitical contexts among female adolescents living in East Jerusalem. Her research implements a cooperative and empowering methodological approach focusing on children's participation right. Prior to embarking on academic research, Dr. Zedan worked for nearly a decade as a clinical social worker with parents and children at Alyn Hospital in Jerusalem and at a Mental Health Clinic in Umm El Fahm.

Heba's CV

 

 

Dr. Haya Gershuni is a postdoctoral researcher in a program focused on children's rights and youth within the Center for Human Rights at the Faculty of Law. She earned her bachelor's and second degree (with honors) through the ultra-Orthodox track at Ono Academic College, followed by a master's degree (with honors) at Tel Aviv University, specializing in Haredi studies with a focus on disabilities.

In her research, Dr. Gershuni delves into the intricate dynamics between the ultra-Orthodox community and the State of Israel, placing particular emphasis on marginalized populations. She explores the interconnection between the state judicial system, Jewish law, and social norms within the ultra-Orthodox community. Dr. Gershuni is an active participant in the Disabilities and Health Investigator Forum within the ultra-Orthodox society at the Center for Disabled Studies at the Hebrew University.

Having authored several articles addressing the intersection of ultra-Orthodox society and disabilities, Dr. Gershuni has presented her work at both local and international conferences. She serves as a teacher in the Ministry of the ultra-Orthodox sector, guiding seminar work, and is also a lecturer at Levinsky College of Education in the field of law, culture, and disability.

Haya's CV