Elisa Marchi

Elisa Marchi, PhD, LLM is a member of the Executive Committee of the Human Rights Practice Program. Dr. Marchi is currently the Program Manager for the Indigenous Rights & Protected Areas Initiative and a Professor of Practice at the James E. Rogers College of Law, Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program. Her academic interests lie at the intersection of legal studies, conservation, international human rights, multiculturalism, and collective rights.

Dr. Marchi holds a Master of Laws (LLM), graduating cum laude from the University of Florence (Italy), a Master's in Human Rights and Conflict Management at the University of Sant'Anna, Pisa (Italy) and a Ph.D. in Legal Studies at the University of Florence. 

Dr. Marchi was a visiting scholar at the University of Kansas (U.S), Brunel University (London), Centro de Investigación y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (Oaxaca, Mexico) and the Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program at the University of Arizona (U.S). She has worked for several NGOs and legal clinics as a consultant and researcher in a vast range of topics including minority and indigenous rights, environmental rights, transitional justice, the rule of law, democracy in the Middle East and North African region, women rights and inmates' rights. Recently, she was a visiting human rights lawyer at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (Washington D.C.). For three years (2021–2024), she served as an external legal advisor to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.