Katherine Gottemoller (she/her) is a rising senior at the University of Notre Dame where she majors in Political Science and Psychology and minors in History. Her research interests include international civil and human rights with a specific focus on the role of race and ethnicity.
She has previously conducted research with Notre Dame’s Klau Institute for Civil and Human Rights, where she studied the instrumentalization of treatment of racial and ethnic minorities in Great Power Politics. During the fall semester of 2023, Katherine studied abroad in Athens, Greece. There, she had the opportunity to conduct research with the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) on the development of bilateral labor agreements that ensure the protection of human rights for non-European Union workers. She looks forward to completing a Political Science senior thesis that comparatively evaluates the Hague Convention, democratic backsliding, and nationalism as explanations for the global decline in intercountry child adoption in the last two decades. On campus, Katherine is the president of Voices of Faith Gospel Choir and a fellow with the God and the Good Life philosophy program.
Upon graduation, she hopes to attend law school to study the legal implementation of human rights internationally. During the SURF program, Katherine will work with William H.J. Hubbard on his economic analysis of litigation, courts, and civil procedures.