Research Fellow
  Priya Bhandari  
  Print this page.

A recent graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School, Priya Bhandari comes to AMCIPS with an extensive background in immigration, asylum law, and a variety of international experiences which support her strong interest in international policy. As a Research Fellow with AMCIPS, Priya will focus on topics dealing with the enforcement of international laws.

While at the University of Minnesota Law School, Priya was a student attorney for the law school’s Immigration and Human Rights Clinic, and had the opportunity to represent a client from the Sudan at an Asylum interview , where client was granted asylum. In addition to being on the Dean’s List, Priya participated on the Philip C. Jessup International Moot Court , the law school’s premier social advocacy journal, ‘Law and Inequality: A Journal of Theory and Practice,’ and also served as treasurer of the International Law Students Association. She added to her interest in human rights advocacy by assisting world renowned human rights expert, Professor David Weissbrodt, in researching and drafting major portions of the chapter entitled “Child Labor and the International Labor Organization’, published in his book ‘International Human Rights: Law, Policy and Process’, third edition, in fall 2001.

Priya graduated from Southern Methodist University in 1999, with honors and a departmental distinction in Political Science. She received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, and a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies, with a double minor in Business and Economics. While at SMU, Priya was the recipient of the distinguished Jack and Nancy Vaughn Scholarship for International Affairs, and an Internship with the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of South Asian Affairs, American Embassy, New Delhi, India. The former internship was at the Consular Section of the American Embassy in New Delhi and provided Priya with the opportunity to assess immigrant and non-immigrant visa applications to the United States. Also, while at SMU, Priya studied abroad at University College, Oxford. There, she studied international business and comparative politics under the tutorial system, which is conducted according to Oxford teaching traditions. Along with being on the Dean’s list at SMU, she served as University Team Captain of the SMU delegation to the National Model United Nations Conference, President of the International Relations Club, Indian Student Association, and Pi Sigma Alpha (Political Science Honor Society).

Priya was born in Bhilai, India and came to the U.S. with her family in 1978. She is a naturalized U.S. Citizen, and is fluent in Hindi. With cultural ties to India, Priya has had many opportunities to visit the country of her ancestors. On one such visit in the summer of 1994, she was able to visit Missionaries of Charity – Mother Teresa’s establishment in Calcutta, India. She and her brother spent time volunteering in one of the homes for abandoned and malnutritioned children on that visit, and also had the opportunity to meet Mother Teresa herself. Considering it an honor to have partaken in that experience, Priya says it inspired her to look beyond herself and seek out work where she could be of service to others.