Sharon Hickey

    Research and Advocacy Director
    Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide
    BCL (Law and English) (International)
    2012

    In 2008, I joined the first class of law students of Maynooth University School of Law and Criminology. What drew me to Maynooth was the beautiful campus—what kept me in Maynooth was the incredible atmosphere.  
     
    As a first year I very much enjoyed studying Law along with English and Music. Aside from the great combination of subjects I could study with law, being in Maynooth at such a formative stage  gave me the opportunity to help establish the extra-curricular aspects of the law programme. I was on the first committees of the Law Society and the Moot Court. I also founded the Golden Thread and co-founded the Irish Law Journal with David Fitzmaurice.
     
    After my second year, with the School of Law and Criminology’s support, I participated in the Washington Ireland Program, where I interned in the Law Library of Congress. Here I researched Irish law for U.S. Congress, while engaging in peace and reconciliation activities with students from Northern Ireland.
     
    As part of my degree, I spent my third year in Boston College Law School and edited Boston College’s Gender Studies journal. During my year in Boston I also interned in the Women and Public Policy Program, Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
     
    After I graduated from Maynooth University, I began working with an NGO called Women for Election, where I helped organise programs for women wishing to run for public office. I am currently pursuing a master’s degree in law in Columbia Law School in New York, and am on the editorial board of the Columbia Human Rights Law Review.

    In 2014 I joined the faculty of Cornell University Law School, where I am a Women and Justice Fellow at the Avon Global Center for Women and Justice. The Avon Global Center works with judges, legal professionals and NGOs to end violence against women and girls. I am also a Teaching Fellow with Cornell Law School's Global Gender Justice Clinic, where I supervise projects related to gender justice both in the US and internationally.
     
    I am indebted to the law lecturers in Maynooth University School of Law and Criminology for being diverse yet cohesive, and challenging yet supportive. Their influence throughout my time in Maynooth pushed me to try my hardest, and excel.