Malyi Visiting Fellows

The Malyi Visiting Fellowship Program offers an opportunity for scholars and practitioners to engage with cutting-edge research and interdisciplinary inquiry into the role of legal and institutional frameworks in promoting integrity, accountability, and justice. As part of the University of Chicago’s tradition of academic excellence, the program fosters dialogue between diverse perspectives, combining rigorous legal analysis with insights from political science, economics, sociology, and philosophy.

Through the Fellowship, visiting scholars contribute their expertise on topics related to the institutional underpinnings of legal systems, mechanisms for maintaining the rule of law, and the interplay between law, policy, and governance. Fellows benefit from a dynamic environment for advancing their research, collaborating with leading scholars, and participating in a variety of workshops, seminars, and public lectures.

Winter 2025 Malyi Fellow

Geser is a PhD candidate in Law, Ethics,  and Economics for Sustainable Development at the University of Milan, where he is also a project associate for the EU-funded COMP-LAW project. He is currently a visiting scholar at the National University of Mongolia and advises the Research and Development Institute of the Mongolian Parliament. His research focuses on democratic backsliding, employing comparative quantitative analysis to highlight its varying trajectories.

Autumn 2024 Malyi Fellow

Yeghishe holds a bachelor’s degree in jurisprudence, an LLM and PhD in International Law from Yerevan State University, an LLM from Georgetown University Law Center, and a JSM from Stanford Law School.

Spring 2024 Malyi Fellows

Professor Mara Revkin holds a JD from Yale Law School (2016) and a PhD in Political Science from Yale University (2019) where her dissertation examined the Islamic State’s governance of civilians in Iraq and Syria. She uses qualitative and quantitative empirical methods including surveys, experiments, interviews, and archival research, and has conducted field research in Egypt, Iraq, Syria, and South Sudan. In addition to her academic research, she has worked with and advised United Nations agencies and other humanitarian organizations on the design of evidence-based programs and policies that aim to strengthen the rule of law and the protection of human rights, support peaceful reconciliation after conflict, and mitigate the root causes of political violence and extremism

Hanna Folsz is a 4th-year PhD Candidate in Political Science at Stanford University and visiting researcher at the University of Chicago. Her research focuses on the challenges and opportunities in countering democratic backsliding. Her dissertation studies when and why opposition parties campaign on rhetorical attacks against the incumbent or policy proposals in elections when the governing party is dismantling democracy and what opposition strategies can generate support for democracy, focusing on the cases of Hungary and Poland.

Professor Dimitry Vladimirovich Kochenov (LEGS '02) leads the Rule of Law Workgroup at CEU Democracy Institute and teaches at the Department of Legal Studies. In 2023 he has been awarded a EUR 1M grant from Stiftung Mercator to establish Clinical Rule of Law work in Budapest, which is his main on-going project. Prof. Kochenov's research focuses on the principles of law in the global context, with a special emphasis on the Rule of Law, citizenship, and the enforcement of EU values. Outside of CEU Dimitry is Visiting Professor at LUISS Guido Carli in Rome (Faculty of Law). In the Spring semester of 2025 he is also a Visiting Professor and a Fellow at the Centre of Comparative and Public Law at Hong Kong University.