Tejal Jesrani is the Director of the TrialWatch Project. Prior to joining HRI, Jesrani worked for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in various roles for 16 years. At the UN, she gained considerable expertise in providing policy advice on implementation of international conventions relating to trafficking in persons, smuggling of migrants and other transnational crimes, supporting intergovernmental negotiations, field level capacity building and more recently, applied research in transnational crime and criminal justice. Her most recent research incorporated the lived experiences and voices of incarcerated individuals to inform better rehabilitation and reintegration programs and policies. In 2023, Jesrani was a Visiting Scholar at NYU’s Bernstein Institute for Human Rights, where she explored the availability of data and appropriate methodologies for a global study on discrimination in the criminal justice system.

Earlier in her career, Jesrani worked in the areas of immigration law, international human rights and international criminal law. She was a Dean’s Fellow at the War Crimes Research Office, worked as an Attorney Advisor at the United States Department of Justice, Executive Office for Immigration Review and at Human Rights Watch as Women’s Rights Associate. She holds a BA in English Language and Literature from Smith College and a Juris Doctor from American University, Washington College of Law.