A team of constitutional law experts examining the intersection of federalism, democratic backsliding, and human rights backlash.
Nesa Zimmermann is Assistant Professor and Chair of Swiss and Comparative Constitutional Law at the University of Neuchâtel. She studied at the University of Neuchâtel (BLaw 2011, MLaw 2012), King's College London (LL.M. 2012) and the University of Geneva (PhD 2020). She has been invited researcher at the University of Utrecht and at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public and International Law in Heidelberg.
Maïna Aerni obtained her Master of Law from the University of Neuchâtel in 2023. Since 2025, she has been a PhD-student at the Chair of Public Law, European Law, and Migration Law under the supervision of Professor Cesla Amarelle at the University of Neuchâtel, currently writing her doctoral dissertation on the interplay of criminal and punitive logics within migration law. Her research focuses particularly on crimmigration and its implications for human rights.
Nicolò P. Alessi is currently a postdoctoral researcher at Chair of Swiss and comparative constitutional law at the University of Neuchâtel and at UniDistance Suisse. He was adjunct professor of Comparative Public Law, postdoc researcher at the University of Bern and the University of Aosta Valley, junior researcher at the Institute for comparative federalism at Eurac research and guest researcher at the Institute of federalism of Fribourg/Freiburg.
Marie Laur is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Neuchâtel where she works on democratic decay and human rights backlash in federal countries. She was awarded a SJD degree summa cum laude from the Central European University where she received the Academic Achievement Awards for First-Year and Advanced Doctoral Students. Before joining CEU, she studied in France, Northern Ireland and Belgium and holds a master’s degree in international and Comparative Law from the University of Toulouse.
Karen Sandoval, a Ph.D. holder in International Law, joined the University of Neuchâtel in September 2025 as a Postdoctoral Researcher. Her research mainly investigates digital threats to modern democracies, emphasizing the influence of algorithms on political polarization and institutional structures.
