Andrea Lachsz: 

She completed her Churchill Fellowship on culturally appropriate implementation of the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (OPCAT) for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and is currently undertaking a PhD in the same area. She has worked as the Australian Capital Territory National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) Coordination Director, and has previously volunteered as a humanitarian observer with the Australian Red Cross Immigration Detention Monitoring Program (visiting facilities in Australia, Papua New Guinea and Nauru). Previous roles include Head of Policy, Communications and Strategy at the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, criminal defence lawyer at Victoria Legal Aid, and criminal defence lawyer and Coordinator of Community Legal Education, Training and Projects at the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency. 

Dr Elīna Šteinerte 

Dr Elīna (LLB, Lawyers Diploma, LLM, PhD) is an academic and human rights lawyer with over 20 years of experience. She is a member of the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (SPT, 2023-2026) and former member and Chair Rapporteur of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD, 2016-2022). Dr Šteinerte is an academic with extensive teaching background having taught public international and human rights law at numerous Universities in Latvia, the United Kingdom, and the Bailiwick of Jersey. She has provided expert advice on a variety of criminal justice reforms, including pre-trial detention, overuse of imprisonment, overcrowding and independent oversight over the places of deprivation of liberty and child justice. 

Cinzia Brentari: 

Cinzia is a senior adviser at  HRI. She holds a degree in law and criminology, developing specific expertise on European policies, advocacy and networking on harm reduction in the criminal justice system. Within this sector she has coordinated research, organised events, trainings and capacity building initiatives, thus bridging expertise between civil society and the institutional sector. Cinzia is a member of the Correlation European Harm Reduction Network Steering Committee and has taken part in scientific committees of international conferences, including the Harm Reduction International Conference, since 2005. 

She has also contributed to European research and has published for the European Monitoring Centre on Drugs and Drug Addiction, among others. 

Between 2001 and 2005 Cinzia worked at the European Commission in Brussels in managing development cooperation projects and supporting EU policy development on drug demand reduction. She is a consultant for the European Commission and its Agencies on project assessment, management and evaluation.