Senior Advocacy Strategist
Joined Human Rights First in 2010

As Senior Advocacy Strategist, Robyn Lieberman develops and cultivates Human Rights First’s strategies to influence U.S. human rights policy.She works closely with HRF staff, Congress, government officials, the media, and our NGO partners to execute HRF’s advocacy agenda, and to build bipartisan and cross-sectoral coalitions to advance HRF’s goals.

Prior to joining Human Rights First, Robyn managed a consulting practice advising philanthropists on strategic grantmaking and developing strategic capacities within nongovernmental organizations. From 1996-2004, Robyn was a program officer at the Walter and Elise Haas Fund in San Francisco, where she designed groundbreaking grantmaking programs in human services and American Jewish life. She co-founded Joshua Venture, the Jewish community’s first organization dedicated to social entrepreneurship.

Robyn served as Legislative Assistant for Foreign Policy and Defense to Senators Russell D. Feingold and Alan Cranston from 1991-1996. During the era of glasnost, she was Assistant Director for Government Relations at the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews in Washington, DC, and advocated for freedom of emigration, refugee protections, and human rights linkage in U.S. policy. She continued her work in Moscow, USSR, partnering with local activists to establish the first independent human rights office in the Soviet Union. Robyn has also held a series of positions with nongovernmental organizations overseas, including the New Israel Fund in Jerusalem, Israel; Prem Dan in Calcutta, India; and the Aga Khan University in the Chitral Valley, Pakistan.

Robyn holds a B.A. in Russian and Soviet Studies from the University of Pennsylvania.