Bios 

Elizabeth (Betsy) Andersen joined ABA ROLI as its Director in September 2014. She came to ABA ROLI from the American Society of International Law, where she was Executive Director and Executive Vice President. Previously, she served as the Executive Director of the ABA’s Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative and as Executive Director of Human Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia Division. Earlier in her career, she served as Legal Assistant to Judge Georges Abi-Saab of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and as a law clerk to Judge Kimba M. Wood of the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York. Ms. Andersen is a graduate of Yale Law School, the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, and Williams College, from which she received the College’s Bicentennial Medal in 2006.

Dragoljub Djordjevic is a practicing attorney from Belgrade. He is married and has three daughters. He graduated from the faculty of law in Belgrade. Mr. Djordjevic has practiced since 1982 with a family law office established in 1927 in Belgrade. He is a worldwide educator for defense lawyers acting before ICC (International Criminal Court). He is a member of governmental commission for drafting the civil code. From 1994 he served two terms on the management board of the Belgrade Bar Chamber, and from 2006 till 2009 was vice-president of the Chamber of Advocates of Serbia (SCA). Since 2009, Mr. Djordjevic has been the President of the SCA. He has also been a representative of the Serbian Bar at the CCBE since 2011 and member of the CCBE Central and Eastern European Countries (PECO) committee. Since 2013 he has been a lecturer at the Law Academy of the SCA.

Mary Greer, Senior Criminal Law Advisor, ABA ROLI, provides substantive program direction, support and expertise to ABA ROLI’s criminal justice programs around the world. She assists with the design and implementation of technical assistance programs for prosecutors, judges, defense advocates, law enforcement officials and representatives of  government ministries, addressing such global issues as corruption, human trafficking, women’s rights, and financial and organized crimes. She conducts comparative models and best practices research in domestic and international criminal law, and designs and implements sector and country assessments to discern compliance with international standards. She also conducts trainings in interactive teaching methodology, adult communication and trial advocacy. Ms. Greer first served as ABA ROLI’s criminal law liaison in Bosnia from 1998–2000. She was then posted at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) with the Coalition for International Justice before rejoining the ABA ROLI in March 2002. Ms. Greer practiced law for 15 years at the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri, including five years as public defender and eight years as the elected prosecutor, before being posted in Sarajevo. Ms. Greer has a B.A. in political science from Benedictine College in Atchison, KS, and a J.D. from St. Louis University.

Jean-Marie Kamatali is an Assistant Professor of Law in the Democratic Governance and Rule of Law LL.M. at the Claude W. Pettit College of Law at Ohio Northern University. Professor Kamatali joined ONU from the University of Notre Dame College of Law, where he served as senior researcher and adjunct professor of law. He has also taught at Kent State University, Indiana University South Bend, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, and Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium). After the 1994 Rwanda Genocide, Professor Kamatali was appointed dean of the only law school in Rwanda at that time. In this position he oversaw the rebuilding of the legal education in Rwanda and was involved in the institutional and legal reform of post-genocide Rwanda, including the Gacaca system, constitutional and legal reform, and national reconciliation. Professor Kamatali has served as consultant for a number of international organizations, including the World Bank, UNICEF, FAO and Danish Center for Human Rights, and U.S Government institutions, including the Department of Justice and USAID, where he was Senior Legal Expert for the Justice Strengthening Project from 2009–2012, providing skills training to Rwandan judges, prosecutors, and lawyers. He earned his Ph.D. from Karl-Franzens Universitat—Graz, his M.A. from the University of Notre Dame, and a License en Droit and Bachelier en Droit from the National University of Rwanda.

Ashley Martin, Senior Program Manager, joined ABA ROLI in November 2010 and manages the Europe and Eurasia Division’s Balkans, Ukraine and Roma Rights programs. After earning her B.A. in international/Russian studies from the College of William and Mary, she served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Far Eastern Russia and then worked for Chemonics International, managing projects in Russia, Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Balkans. She earned her J.D. from Vermont Law School and is licensed to practice law in Virginia. Ms. Martin came to ABA ROLI from a clerkship with Judge Kathryn A. Oberly at the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Olga Ruda, Deputy Director, Research and Assessments, has been providing research support to ABA ROLI’s judicial reform programs worldwide since June 2004. Her primary duties include overseeing implementation of the Judicial Reform Index assessments, which analyze the compliance of national judiciaries with fundamental international standards on judicial independence. Her past experience includes research on human trafficking at Johns Hopkins University, a judicial internship at the U.S. Court of Federal Claims and work with Harvard University’s macroeconomic reform program in Ukraine. Ms. Ruda holds a law degree from Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University and an LL.M. degree in international legal studies from Washington College of Law, American University.

Jessie Tannenbaum, ABA ROLI Senior Legal Analyst, conducts research and analysis in the areas of criminal justice reform, judicial reform and legal profession development, and is coordinator of ABA ROLI’s legal profession reform thematic area. She has conducted and/or coordinated more than a dozen assessments related to criminal justice and judicial reform, and is coordinator of the Detention Procedure Assessment Tool and the Analysis of Criminal Defense Advocacy. Ms. Tannenbaum holds an LL.M. degree in international human rights law, summa cum laude, and a J.D. degree, cum laude, from Notre Dame Law School, and a B.A. degree, cum laude, from the University of Denver. Prior to joining ABA ROLI in 2008, she was a fellow at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States. She has also practiced immigration law, family law and criminal defense, and is active in several DC-area bar associations.