Dr Ioana Cismas is a senior lecturer at York Law School and the co-convener of the LLM in International Human Rights Law & Practice at the Centre for Applied Human Rights. Before moving to York, Ioana lectured in international law and international human rights law at Stirling Law School (2015-2017), was a scholar-in-residence at the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at the New York University School of Law (2014) and a researcher/research fellow at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights (2009-2013).

Over the years, Ioana has provided legal and policy advice to United Nations mechanisms, governments, and non-governmental organizations. In 2013, she worked at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva and served as consultant to the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence. From 2009 – 2012, she acted as legal advisor to a member of the UN Human Rights Council Advisory Committee. In 2017, she has been elected to the International Committee on Human Rights in Times of Emergency of the International Law Association.

Ioana has a PhD in International Law (summa cum laude) from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. Her book Religious Actors and International Law was published by Oxford University Press in 2014.