Maryna Tsapok

Bio

Maryna is a Senior Researcher for Bench to School Initiative at UC Law SF – a partnership that integrates law, education, and neuroscience to improve literacy for vulnerable and justice-involved children in California by researching and reforming the services available to them.

Maryna is a 2022 LL.M. graduate of the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, with a specialization in Criminal Law. She is a lawyer from Ukraine focusing on criminal justice reform, human rights, and anti-corruption issues.

Before coming to UC Law SF, Maryna worked as Resident Adviser for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). There, she worked on a project that supported criminal justice institutions and civil society initiatives in Ukraine in the implementation of OECD standards. Previously Maryna worked as Special Adviser to the Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine and took part in the development and implementation of the Reform’s Agenda for the Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO). Later as an expert for EU Project for Support to Justice Sector Reforms in Ukraine, she helped to develop the organizational growth strategy for PGO and methodology for a country-wide crime survey.

As a human rights lawyer, Maryna worked for UN Office for High Commissioner on Human Rights in its Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, where she advised on potential remedies and legislative and policy responses to systemic human rights violations. As a volunteer, she took part in visiting places of detention and monitoring potential human rights violations within the National Preventive Mechanism Against Torture in Ukraine operated by the Office of Parliament Commissioner on Human Rights.

Maryna also took part in numerous research and advocacy projects – she drafted and advocated for legislative and policy changes in the field of policing and prosecutorial work, criminal justice, and human rights.

While in law school, Maryna interned for the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office. There, she supported the Law Division by researching the most successful progressive policies implemented by reform-minded elected prosecutors throughout the country.

Education

• University of California College of the Law, San Francisco
  LL.M. with specialization in Criminal Law 2022

• Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Kyiv, Ukraine
  Master Degree in Law (the equivalent of J.D.) 2018

• National Technical University “Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute,” Kharkiv, Ukraine
  B.A., Management of International Business