Elisa Vari

Elisa Vari is a Senior Staff Attorney at IRAP Jordan. In this role, Elisa provides direct legal services to refugees seeking resettlement and other forms of protection.

Prior to joining IRAP, Elisa worked in administrative investigations for UN agencies in Rome and, previously, she was a fellow with UNHCR’s Caribbean Protection Unit in Washington, DC. During law school, Elisa worked with NGOs promoting refugee and immigrants’ rights between DC and California and clerked at a San Francisco-based law firm focused on deportation defense. 

Elisa holds a JD from UC Law San Francisco (formerly known as UC Hastings) and an MSc in International Human Rights Law from Oxford University. She speaks Italian and Spanish and is studying Arabic. She has published articles on gang-related and gender-based asylum claims in the US and on border externalization efforts in Europe. 

Elisa is a member of the California Bar.