Robert & Patricia Switzer Foundation

Fellowship Year: 2012

Academic Background: Yale Law School/Yale School of Forestry & Env Studies - JD/MS - (Law/Environmental Health and Justice)

Stephanie Safdi is a joint-degree student at the Yale Law School and Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, where she concentrates on intersections of environmental, health, and human rights law. Stephanie endeavors to advance environmental justice domestically and internationally through legal advocacy, community-driven development, and research. As a member of Yale’s Lowenstein Human Rights Clinic, Stephanie advocates for indigenous rights in the context of large-scale land development and agribusiness in Papua, Indonesia. She has worked to advance access to justice services and accountability for corporate mining practices in Sierra Leone through the human rights organization Timap for Justice, as well as to create accountability for disparate environmental and social harms domestically, with the Natural Resources Defense Council Litigation Team, and for disproportionately impacted communities in California, with the Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment. In an effort to advance imaginative and collaborative approaches to environmental law at Yale, Stephanie founded and chaired the New Directions in Environmental Law Conference Series. Stephanie has also served as Co-President of the Yale Environmental Law Association and Vice-President of the American Constitution Society’s Yale chapter. Prior to law school, Stephanie used a Fulbright Fellowship to establish a public health outreach program with indigenous Israeli Bedouin and pursued global health equity through the Center for the Study of the Presidency, USAID, and the Harvard Initiative for Global Health. Stephanie received an A.B. in History and Literature from Harvard University and an M.Phil. from the University of Cambridge, where she researched the history and sociology of health and medicine.

Expertise: Environmental Policy & Law