Lisa Harms is assistant professor of Law & Society at the Van Vollenhoven Institute for law, governance and society. In her research, she is interested in social movements and human rights. Lisa’s earlier work has focused on legal mobilisation and religious rights. Her PhD research compared legal mobilisation strategies of minority and majority religious groups at the European Court of Human Rights. The resulting monograph Faith in Courts has been published with Hart Publishing in 2022. In addition to continuing her work on religious legal mobilisation, Lisa currently develops a new research agenda on the rights of nature with a focus on Europe and the Caribbean. In particular, she is interested in the ways social movements translate and adapt such rights to new socio-political contexts.

Lisa’s background is in Political Science and Sociology. Before joining the VVI, she held postdoctoral research positions at the Institute of Sociology, University of Münster and the Chair of Comparative Constitutionalism, University of Göttingen. While pursuing her PhD, she was a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity. She acquired her PhD in Political Science and Sociology (2019) in cotutelle at the University of Göttingen and Sciences Po Paris.