MHR student Aidan Thomason: Working towards dignity for all
You can trace Aidan Thomason’s passion for human rights all the way back to her youth.
“My mom always jokes that I liked things black and white as a child,” she says. “I didn’t like it when kids were mean to other kids or rules didn’t make sense.”
Thomason grew up in the southeast, living in Tennessee, Alabama, and South Carolina, and attended the University of South Carolina, where she double-majored in history and international relations. While there, she worked with refugees and also produced a podcast, “Seeking Refuge,” that centered refugee voices to challenge common misconceptions.
Her first job after college was at the university's Anne Frank Center (a partner of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam), where she focused on Holocaust history and human rights storytelling.
Thomason’s next step became clear: She chose the Master of Human Rights program at the University of Minnesota, a joint offering of the Humphrey School of Public Affairs and the College of Liberal Arts.
She was looking for a public policy education focused on migration, human rights, and “public service as something that’s virtuous,” she says. “I think people are really cynical about public service and that’s not the case at the Humphrey School. I liked the idea that people were graduating from the [Humphrey] School and going out and doing jobs that are meaningful.”
A number of her professors at South Carolina had attended the University of Minnesota for graduate school and spoken highly of it, she says. Thomason also spoke with Professor Eric Schwartz, chair of the Humphrey School’s global policy area, former dean of the School, and one-time president of Refugees International, a global refugee advocacy organization. Schwartz made his case, as he did to many students before her: "You can do this here, and you can’t do it anywhere else.’”
I think people are really cynical about public service and that’s not the case at the Humphrey School. I liked the idea that people were graduating from the [Humphrey] School and going out and doing jobs that are meaningful.
An immersive internship and illuminating courses
Thomason’s time in the Master of Human Rights program provided a defining experience. In the summer of 2025, she was chosen for an internship with the United Nations (UN) Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and spent three months at its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. She worked with a team on issues including freedom on the Internet, funding for nonprofits, protection of human rights defenders.
She conducted research on the UN’s work in transnational repression, when governments reach across their borders to silence dissent among exiles, and helped with a launch event on that topic during the Human Rights Council. She also provided support there for an event discussing the oppression of Iranian women.
A number of classes have shaped Thomason’s understanding of human rights issues worldwide. One is Schwartz’s Human Rights and Humanitarian Crises course. “[Schwartz] has a lot of institutional knowledge of how different agencies work,” she says. "It was a good explanation of the frameworks we have, and also frameworks people are trying to imagine that could work more humanely."
Another favorite has been International Human Rights Law with Minnesota Law Regents Professor Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, who was appointed by the UN’s Human Rights Council as a United Nations Special Rapporteur and was elected to the International Commission of Jurists. Thomason says, “She’s clear at teaching you what the law is, but also gets you to think critically about how we could use the law for more humane outcomes.”
Thomason loves that the program focuses on building community among students. She definitely feels that sense of community with her cohort, which includes a friend who may go into the Foreign Service, someone working to prevent human trafficking and classmates working in the fields of women’s rights, trans rights and migration. “Lots of different, fascinating people that are doing important work,” Thomason says.
A broader path toward dignity
Rather than neatly distilling her career interests, the Master of Human Rights program has left Thomason considering more potential avenues for improving lives. Originally, she was thinking of strategic communications work to help increase positive perceptions of refugees entering the United States and reduce xenophobia.
Right now, she’s most interested in “how the digital space intersects with authoritarianism: how hostile governments or powerful actors try to use the Internet and other digital tools to oppress people, to exploit them or take away their rights.”
“I’ve come away with more of a generalist perspective. It’s become more important to me to do work that’s aligned with my values rather than to work in a specific area,” she adds. “So, just making sure that I’m doing something that’s adding dignity to people’s lives and adding decent and humane conditions to the world.”