meet the collaboratory
Dr. Sarah Annabella Riley Case
Dr. Riley Case is the convener of the Collaboratory for Black Legal Poethics. She is an Assistant Professor of Slavery and the Law, Critical Race Theory, and Black Life at the McGill University Faculty of Law. Her research and teaching cross over law, history, conceptions of justice, representations of nature, and the arts. She collaborates with people working toward racial and ecological justice in the UN system, academic communities, legal clinics, and arts communities. She has a photography practice that she integrates into her work, while it generally brings her joy.
Yuri Alexander Romaña-Rivas
Yuri Alexander Romaña-Rivas, an Afro-Colombian lawyer, is a current doctoral (Ph.D.) candidate at McGill University’s Faculty of Law. He is an O’Brien Fellow at the McGill Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism and recipient of the 2022 Vanier scholarship. Before pursuing his doctoral program, between 2018 and 2021, Yuri worked as a specialized lawyer at the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (“JEP” in Spanish) in Bogotá, a transitional justice tribunal established in Colombia. Previously, Yuri worked for over five years as a Human Rights Specialist at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington, D.C.
Lena Dzifa Phillips
Lena Dzifa Phillips is a third year BCL/JD student at McGill University Faculty of Law. Her interests lie at the intersections of socio-spatial justice and the law. Her practice is rooted in feminist, anti-colonial, transnational and anti-racist frameworks. Prior to law school she worked in Canada and East Africa, supporting grassroots and systems change work led by-and-for Black, Indigenous and African communities. She also engaged in projects focused on design, creative technology and artistic practice as protest. Lena studied International Relations, Environmental Policy, Urban Development Planning and Southern Urbanism at the University of Toronto, University College London and the University of Cape Town.
Daniel Hornstein
Daniel Hornstein is a 4L B.C.L./J.D. candidate at with an MA in Political Theory and Comparative Politics from McGill and a BA Honours in Political Studies from Queen's University. His research integrates the intersecting disciplines of philosophy, political theory, and law, with a particular focus on critical legal theory, decoloniality, and abolition. Daniel's research has sought to uncover the history and re-emergence of fascism and its interface with the political economy and ideological hegemony of contemporary neoliberal crises specifically, as well as the normative discourses of racial capitalism and liberal constitutionalism more generally. He is currently applying to PhD programs.
José Arturo
José Arturo Maldonado Andreu is a doctoral candidate at McGill University’s Faculty of Law, focusing on the impacts of colonialism on environmental law and on the relationship between humans and nature. Rooted in his love for the Caribbean, his research emphasizes decolonizing law by examining how colonial dynamics are reproduced through environmental laws, resulting in epistemological violence. José Arturo actively engages with communities and scholars addressing racial and ecological justice, working to redefine legal frameworks, and advocating for reparations for slavery and colonial exploitation in his native Puerto Rico. His research incorporates these connections studying the effects of colonialism on the legal consciousness of people living in marginalized communities. Beyond his doctoral research, he is involved with the Coalition for the Rights of Nature in Puerto Rico and teaches environmental law and climate justice. He finds peace feeling the warm Caribbean sea breeze under a night sky in the southwest coast of Puerto Rico, where his family planted a small forest of the threatened Cobana negra species.
Ta’Ziyah Jarrett
Ta’Ziyah Jarrett is a 1L BCL/JD candidate at McGill University’s Faculty of Law. Passionate about the intersection between social justice and law, Ta’Ziyah gained valuable experience working as a member of the “Racialized Communities Strategy” team at Legal Aid Ontario. She is currently an Affiliate with the Thinking Through the Museum research network, working within their Critical Race Museology cluster. In her free time, Ta’Ziyah indulges in many different mediums of storytelling.