Human Rights Investigations Lab
HRC Lab, Co-Faculty Director
Human Rights Center
Applications for Spring 2025 are closed for this project.
Thank you for your interest in the Investigations Lab. For the Spring 2025 semester, we are only accepting applications from students that completed LS125 in Fall 2024. Those students were already sent a supplemental application due January 6th. We are not accepting any other applicants this semester, but will accept new applicants again in Fall 2025.
You will not be considered unless you have completed both the URAP application and the supplemental questionnaire.
The HRC Lab is a collaborative, innovative, student-driven space that conducts investigations on human rights violations, violence and injustice around the globe using open source information. In the Lab, members work in student-led teams to help discover, document and verify social media content and open source information to assist a wide range of external partners on legal, journalistic and fact-finding efforts.
Examples of past year’s projects include monitoring and analyzing mis/disinformation, documenting border-related human rights violations, and tracking environmental harms. We welcome applications from all disciplines and aim to create a diverse, inclusive, and supportive space for students to explore, develop and dedicate their passion to human rights work in a highly collaborative environment!
Please email sofiakooner@berkeley.edu if you have further questions.
Role: Training and Participation Requirements:
The Lab is not a typical academic class! We expect students to dedicate 6-8hrs/week working with their team to advance the project and support their partner’s goals. The weekly commitment includes at least two hours in which students attend mandatory meetings, 1 hour where students work in groups, and another hour of a bi-weekly seminar. We host a range of engaging seminars, workshops, and forums students can attend throughout the semester. Team meetings and Lab events are held in-person at the Human Rights Center. Due to security and confidentiality concerns related to our projects, the Investigations Lab will not offer asynchronous recording of any workshops, training, meetings, or events.
Once enrolled, students will have the option to continue their work with the Lab in following semesters. Lab alumni who stayed with us for years say the Lab was one of the most rewarding experiences they had at Cal, and have gone on to impressive and meaningful careers.
Tasks:
• Working in teams to conduct open-source investigations of human rights violations and potential war crimes.
• Finding online information relevant to open source investigations by combing through social media platforms and other open sources.
• Monitoring and archiving online information from live events with social media platforms and other open sources.
• Analyzing, authenticating and verifying online information—including using visual and textual clues in conjunction with satellite imagery to identify the specific locations where human rights violations took place.
• Using open source investigation techniques to support the work of strategic human rights litigators in building universal jurisdiction cases for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
• Drafting reports that summarize research findings and contributing to engaging outputs.
•Attending a bi-weekly seminar with the entire lab cohort
Learning Objectives:
▪ Experience in applying critical-thinking, digital skills, and investigative methodologies to assess the reliability and credibility of online sources and the veracity of online information.
▪ Knowledge and understanding of basic digital, physical and psycho-social security practices that are critical to an online investigation.
▪ Exercise of proper professional and ethical responsibilities to clients, the legal system, and society more generally.
▪ Knowledge of how to use online information to solve real-world problems and contribute to a more just society.
Qualifications: We seek students from all majors. Students will be trained and given ongoing support and supervision, including guidance in regards to potential exposure to graphic or sensitive material in photographs and video.
Please visit the lab website linked below to learn more.
Day-to-day supervisor for this project: Sofia Kooner, Staff Researcher
Hours: 6-8 hrs
Related website: https://humanrights.berkeley.edu/students/join-investigations-lab
Social Sciences