Graduate Student Directory

Florence-Olivia Genesse is a doctoral student at the University of British Columbia’s Peter A. Allard School of Law, specializing in equality issues under international and domestic law. Her doctoral research on the law of sexual offences is conducted under the supervision of Professor Janine Benedet (KC) and is supported by a $120,000 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Doctoral Fellowship.

Jessie Gomberg is a PhD candidate at Allard Law working under the supervision of Dr. Cristie Ford. Jessie’s PhD research focuses on professional regulation of lawyers in Canada. She takes a critical view of the disciplinary systems regulating lawyers whose conduct is considered “unbecoming” due to alcohol and drug addiction. Jessie’s research performs a critical analysis of contemporary lawyer discipline employing feminist legal theory and proposing alternative dispute resolution to advocate for discipline reform.

Chinenye Helen Eze is a Ph.D candidate at the Peter Allard School of Law, where she completed her LLM in 2022. She has a passion for intellectual property and social justice. Her research examines the effect of human gene patents on medical research in the United States of America and Nigeria. Chinenye seeks to examine this issue through Critical Intellectual Property lens and a qualitative and comparative methodological approach.

Mark Howard is a doctoral student at the Peter A. Allard School of Law. He is a Pākehā (white settler) of Afrikaans descent, raised in Aotearoa New Zealand. Mark’s research explores the influence of enduring Indigenous laws on settler constitutional law in Canada and New Zealand. He compares how diverse Indigenous legal systems actualize “relationality” and whether courts can embed these understandings within settler law through the medium of unwritten constitutional principles.

Kirtika Kattel is a PhD candidate at the Peter A. Allard School of Law, whose research focuses on the study of structural human rights violations in South Asia, particularly, the practice of caste-based discrimination. Her research explores the intersection of law and society, the impact of culture and religion in law, and their implications for justice and equality in society. She holds an LLM (hons.) from the University of Melbourne and has over three years of experience working in various non-profit non-governmental organizations in Nepal.

Kirthana is a doctoral student at the Peter A. Allard School of Law, specializing in comparative corporate law, corporate governance, and securities law. Her research explores the intersections of technology, sustainability, and global corporate governance practices. She has published on various issues related to the enforcement of shareholders’ rights and directors’ duties.

Lindsay Massara is a PhD candidate in Law at the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia. Her doctoral research broadly considers British colonial administration and the genealogy of common law emergency. She traces the phenomena of emergency and martial law through case studies across Jamaica, Ireland, and India in an effort to magnify circuits of power and complicate common law formations of race, property, and a rule of law.

Melanie McPhail is a doctoral student at the Peter A. Allard School of Law. Her research investigates the regulation of innovative health technologies, including novel regulatory authorization and reimbursement approaches.