Marissa Diaz

ESR Project Title:  Voice, Disability and ‘End of Life’ Decision-Making

Schweizer Paraplegiker-Forschung

Phone  +41 41 939 65 78

E-Mail   marissa.diaz@paraplegie.ch

Marissa has an undergraduate degree in International Studies with a minor in Asian Studies and a concentration in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of San Francisco. She is also receiving her LL.M. in International Law from the University of Kent’s Brussels School of International Studies.

Her dissertation focused on the continued sterilization of women with disabilities in Australia despite their ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

As a trainee in Handicap International’s Brussels office, Marissa assisted in all advocacy and communication-related tasks, such as implementing social media communication & strategic watch, copywriting and updating content on websites, and producing and co-producing news articles for a blog. She also supported the creation of a mapping and analysis of media usage by targeted EU policymakers and assisted in defining the social media strategy to build contacts with relevant specialized media identified, taking into account HI’s existing presence in media and social media. Marissa also wrote reports on gender in humanitarian mine action and the US bilateral sanctions framework against the DPRK in order to support operational decision-making.