Tracey Gurd

Tracey Gurd is AJWS’s Senior Director of Civil and Political Rights and Advocacy. She is responsible for leading a $4.5 million grantmaking portfolio focused on democracy and justice in 11 countries in Asia, Mesoamerica and Africa. Tracey also directs AJWS’s advocacy work to promote U.S. and global laws and policies that advance human rights. Prior to joining AJWS in 2016, Tracey spent 12 years at the Open Society Foundations. For a decade, she monitored international war crimes trials and directed the advocacy for OSF’s public interest law arm, the Open Society Justice Initiative. In her last two years at OSF, she oversaw initiatives to integrate artists and young people into human rights work across its foundations, as well as to help fledgling organizations start up. Originally from Australia, she was a policy analyst at both the Australian Department of the Prime Minister & Cabinet and at the Australian Embassy in Budapest. Tracey started her professional career as a journalist. She holds a Masters of Public International Law, Human Rights, and International Humanitarian Law from the University of Melbourne, where she was also a research fellow on comparative constitutional law. She graduated from the Australian National University with a combined arts and law bachelor’s degree.