Human Rights Program Staff

Susan Marx, MSt., M.A.
Director, Human Rights Program

Susan Marx was appointed director of the Carter Center Human Rights Program in May 2022. Prior to that, she was project director for the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative combating human trafficking in the Southern Africa Development Community and implementing women’s economic empowerment and gender-based violence reduction initiatives in Eswatini.

Previously, Marx spent 10 years with The Asia Foundation, most recently as the country representative in Timor-Leste, managing a diverse portfolio including gender-based violence, police reform, and sustainable economic development programs. She first joined the foundation as a program manager for women’s rights in Afghanistan. Marx started her career as a communications officer for the U.S. Agency for International Development in Iraq.

Marx is an expert in human rights, rule of law, access to justice, gender-based violence and combating human trafficking as well as strategic leadership, program design, implementation, and operational management. She has spent most of her career in the field and has experience in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and the United States, with specific focus on conflict, post-conflict, and least-developed environments.

Marx holds a Master of Studies degree in international human rights law from Oxford University, a master’s in African studies from UCLA, and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Southern California. She is also a graduate of the Yale School of Management Women’s Leadership Course.

Karin D. Ryan
Senior Policy Advisor on Human Rights and Special Representative on Women and Girls

As senior policy advisor, Ms. Ryan works with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Mrs. Rosalynn Carter on a range of issues, including assisting their efforts on behalf of victims of human rights violations through personal interventions with heads of state.

She has represented the Center in many international negotiations, including the International Criminal Court, the human rights of women, the U.N. Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, and most recently on the establishment of a U.N. Human Rights Council and has worked closely with the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to organize expert consultations designed to strengthen the role of the OHCHR within the United Nations system.

Ryan earned bachelor's degrees in political science from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, and in contemporary writing and production from Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts.

She has participated in the Center's election observation missions to Haiti, Palestine, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Nigeria. She has also coordinated the Human Rights Defenders Policy Forum from 2003-2006, 2007, 2008, 2011, and 2013 whose aim is to support those on the frontlines of the struggle for human rights and democracy all over the world.

Jordan Long
Senior Associate Director

Jordan Long joined The Carter Center in December 2022. As senior associate director of the Human Rights Program, he focuses on expanding the program’s portfolio by creating efficient, impactful projects both internationally and in the United States. From 2020-2022, Long worked at Freedom House managing the Human Rights Support Mechanism (HRSM), one of USAID’s premier funding streams for democracy, human rights, and governance. Under his leadership, the HRSM consortium — comprising Freedom House, ABA ROLI, Internews, Pact, and Search for Common Ground — accessed more than $12 million in rapid response funding to respond to emergent human rights situations throughout the world. Prior to Freedom House, Long ran a global anti-violence program at the American Bar Association. He also supported the Human Rights Campaign in setting up its global programs and worked across Europe in youth empowerment.

Elizabeth Plachta, J.D.
Associate Director

Elizabeth Plachta works on the program's Democratic Election Standards project and elections-focused efforts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She has been with the Center since 2010 and has supported election observation missions in Libya, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Sudan. Prior to joining the Carter Center, Plachta was a consultant for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, where her work included assisting with programming efforts on prison reform in southern Sudan, supporting a counter-piracy program in Kenya, and participating in prison and security-sector assessment missions in southern Sudan and Ghana. While in law school, Plachta focused primarily on international and human rights law and was involved in international law practica on women's rights in Tanzania, rule of law in Liberia, and international criminal tribunals. Plachta earned a joint bachelor’s in international affairs and Spanish from Georgia Tech and a law degree from Washington and Lee University School of Law.

Erin Crysler, M.A.
Associate Director

Erin Crysler currently manages the Human Rights House and Mining Governance projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She joined The Carter Center as an intern in 2007. As an assistant program coordinator, she worked on the 2008 election observation mission in Ghana and a capacity-building initiative for African Union election observers. Prior to joining the Center, she was a Peace Corps volunteer in Benin focused on secondary education, gender equality, and AIDS awareness. Crysler earned her bachelor's degree in English from the University of Georgia and her master’s in international affairs from Georgia Tech.

Moezza Siddiqi, M.S. 
Senior Program Associate

Moezza Siddiqi joined the Human Rights Program in 2022. She leads the program’s work on women’s rights and supports initiatives including the Human Rights Defenders Forum and Social Justice through the Arts. She holds a Master of Science in development administration and planning from University College London and a Bachelor of Science in international development from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Prior to joining the Center, Siddiqi was a consultant for Just Results, supporting efforts to simplify and digitize government administrative procedures in countries of the Global South. She has also led programs on women's empowerment and leadership in her native Pakistan.

Kristian Kastner Warpinski, M.A.
Senior Program Associate

Kristian Warpinski joined The Carter Center in August of 2022 to support the Center’s DRC projects and Extractive Industries Governance programming. She holds a Master of Arts in international conflict and security and is writing her dissertation for her doctorate in political science from Georgia State University, where she also teaches undergraduate research methods. Before joining the Center, Warpinski worked in child advocacy and nonprofit administration, and her primary areas of research interests center on conflict from a human rights perspective, with particular emphasis on gender, youth exploitation, and the impacts of climate change on all the above.

Alejandro Espinosa, M.A.
Program Associate 

Alejandro Espinosa joined The Carter Center in 2023 to support the organization’s Human Rights Defenders Initiative and Forum. Originally from Bogota, Colombia, but raised in Atlanta, Espinosa earned a Bachelor of Arts in international relations and another in Romance languages (French and Portuguese) from the University of Georgia. He earned a Master of Arts in international affairs from The George Washington University. Espinosa has contributed work to the Organization of American States and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the U.N. Information Center, the National Democratic Institute, The National LGBT Chamber of Commerce, and Freedom House. He has supported efforts for human rights, anti-corruption, and international law and was a part of the OAS’s electoral observation mission to Brazil in October 2022.

Gael Nzeyimana
Program Associate

Gael Nzeyimana is an economic historian who studies the intersection of race, policy, and economics in American institutions. He has studied reparations and the various channels that have created the current racial wealth gap. He uses quantitative and qualitative data to present a nuanced analysis of contemporary race relations in the U.S. and how The Carter Center can continue advocating for civil and human rights at home. Before joining the Human Rights Program, Nzeyimana was a member of the Democracy Program’s U.S. elections mission. He is an Army veteran who holds a Bachelor of Arts in history from the University of Michigan and a Master of Arts in history and economics from the University of Bayreuth.

Abigail Stanga
Program Associate

Abigail Stanga joined The Carter Center in October 2022 and currently supports the Human Rights House initiative in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She received a Bachelor of Arts in international relations and global affairs from Eckerd College and minored in Spanish and is in the process of completing the Master’s in Development Practice program at Emory University. While at Eckerd, Stanga volunteered at the Pinellas County (Florida) Refugee Program and completed a senior practicum on international organizations in Geneva, Switzerland. She is trilingual, having learned French while living in France as a child and Spanish while studying and traveling to Spanish-speaking countries. Prior to joining The Carter Center, Stanga worked on a U.S. congressional campaign, in administration at a law firm, and in sales and marketing at several businesses.

Emily Broussard
Program Assistant

Emily Broussard joined The Carter Center in July 2023. Previously, she taught elementary school students as a Teach for America corps member in New Orleans. While in New Orleans, she also volunteered with Sexual Trauma Awareness and Response (STAR) as a medical and helpline advocate for sexual assault survivors. Broussard later taught in Georgia’s Fulton County Schools. She received a Bachelor of Arts in anthropology and a Bachelor of Science in psychology from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, where she conducted cross-cultural research on social identity theory and victim blaming in events of sexual violence. She also conducted research on the psychological effects of foreign aid on local communities in Ghana.