Minerva LAW Career Talks host accomplished women in legal research and beyond. The events provide a safe space for the speakers to share their journeys and insights and to inspire and guide fellow women researchers in the Max Planck Law network. In this session, Professor Nienke Grossman and Professor Jaya Ramji-Nogales will be happy to answer any questions in relation to their careers in legal academia and in practice.
This event is mainly organized by Kritika Sharma, alumna of Max Planck Law and member of the organising committee of the Minerva LAW Network.
Professor Nienke Grossman is Professor and Co-Director of the Center for International and Comparative Law at University of Baltimore School of Law. Professor Grossman has published and spoken widely on women and international law, feminist approaches to international law, and international courts and tribunals, including in the American Journal of International Law and the Max Planck Encyclopedias of International Procedural and Public International Law. She has a strong commitment to service. In 2024, she was nominated by the United States and elected by the Organization of American States General Assembly to the Inter-American Juridical Committee, where she is currently serving as Vice Chair (2026-2028). She was Special Advisor to the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in 2023, and she serves on the Board of the Free Yezidi Foundation and as an advisor to other NGOs involving women’s rights. Professor Grossman is a former member of the American Society of International Law’s Executive Council and a former co-chair of its Women in International Law and International Courts and Tribunals Interest Groups. She is currently co-chairing ASIL’s signature topic on Advancing Gender Justice. She has also advised States before the International Court of Justice.
Professor Grossman is the recipient of the 2026 University System of Maryland Regents Faculty Award for Excellence in Public Service and the 2018 University of Baltimore School of Law Excellence in Teaching Award. Before joining the University of Baltimore School of Law, Prof. Grossman was a law clerk in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, an Associate at Foley Hoag, LLP, and a Future Law Professors Fellow at Georgetown University Law Center.
Professor Jaya Ramji-Nogales is Sheller Family Professor in Public Interest Law at Temple University, Beasley School of Law. Professor Ramji-Nogales specializes in immigration law, international law, procedure and process. Her research areas include asylum and refugee law, global migration law, and empirical assessment of asylum adjudication.
Professor Ramji-Nogales’ current work in scholarship and in practice focuses on contemporary challenges to asylum and refugee law in the United States. Recent scholarship examines the intersection of race, immigration law, and national security; applies infrastructures literature and governance theory to the laws and policies that construct the southwestern U.S. border; and assesses knowledge production in refugee law. Prior publications explore the concept of global migration law; study the US asylum adjudication system using quantitative and qualitative methods; catalogue the Trump administration’s attacks on the asylum system; and analyze comparative legal responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Professor Ramji-Nogales is a Senior Research Associate of the Refugee Law Initiative of the School for Advanced Studies at the University of London; a Permanent Visiting Professor at MOBILE: The Danish National Research Foundation’s Center of Excellence for Global Mobility Law, University of Copenhagen Faculty of Law; and a member of the Advisory Board of the Migrant Rights Initiative at Cornell Law School. She is a member of the Board of Editors of the American Journal of International Law and a Counsellor of the American Society of International Law, and was a founding co-chair of the Migration Law Interest Group at the Society.
As a Senior Legal Advisor to the Documentation Center of Cambodia for nearly thirty years, Professor Ramji-Nogales has authored several pieces on transitional justice in Cambodia. Prior to joining academia, Professor Ramji-Nogales practiced law as a Staff Attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union in New York and as an Associate at the international law firm Debevoise & Plimpton.
