Sharon Pia Hickey is a Research and Teaching Associate with the International Humanitarian Law Clinic at Leiden University. Before joining the Kalshoven-Gieskes Forum, Sharon worked at the Cornell Law School Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide. As Research and Advocacy Director, Sharon managed the Death Penalty Worldwide Database, contributed to the founding of the Alice Project for Women on Death Row, and oversaw studies on a variety of criminal law and human rights topics. She further spearheaded the organisation of the Makwanyane Institute, an intensive training program for lawyers representing indigent clients facing a death sentence.

Prior to her time at the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide, Sharon supervised students as Clinical Teaching Fellow at Cornell’s Gender Justice Clinic. In this role she contributed to a variety of research, advocacy, and litigation projects, such as a petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for U.S. servicemembers subjected to sexual violence.

Sharon graduated top of her class from the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, where she was Executive Editor of the Irish Law Journal. She earned her LL.M. from Columbia Law School, where she graduated as a Stone Scholar and was an editor on the Human Rights Law Review. Sharon is a member of the New York Bar, and was honoured in 2017 with the Emerging Leader Award from the IUSA and the U.S. Embassy Dublin.