Ghizal Haress is the Program Director of the Afghan Women’s Fellowship Program at Massey College. A constitutional lawyer, she has over a decade of experience working at the intersection of constitutionalism, rule of law, and women’s rights in post-conflict contexts. Ghizal previously served as Afghanistan’s first national Ombudsperson and as a Commissioner on the Afghanistan Independent Commission for Overseeing the Implementation of the Constitution. She is a longtime faculty member at the American University of Afghanistan, where she also served as chair of the Law Department.

Since relocating to Canada, Ghizal has continued her academic work in the areas of international justice, rule of law, and access to education. She has held visiting scholar and professor positions at the University of Toronto and York University, and was a visiting scholar at Massey College. She currently teaches as an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto. She also serves as a judge on the People’s Tribunal for the Women of Afghanistan, an international civil society initiative documenting the Taliban’s violations of women’s rights. Ghizal holds an LLM from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.