Cindy Leung

Cindy holds a bachelor’s degree in Journalism and Communication from The Chinese University of Hong Kong. In 2020, she completed the LLM in Human Rights at The University of Hong Kong with Distinction. She then completed the MA in Social Research at The University of York with Distinction in 2022 and accepted an ESRC-funded +3 doctoral studentship to pursue a PhD at The Centre for Applied Human Rights (CAHR) and York Law School.

Cindy has multiple years of experience in communications and project management gained across the third sector and tertiary education institutions. She also worked as a research assistant at the Faculty of Law, The University of Hong Kong and helped coordinate a public legal education project. During her MA in Social Research, she worked as a research associate at CAHR and undertook research on the governance and development of human rights cities.

Cindy is interested in interdisciplinary and applied human rights research, with a particular focus on the implementation of social rights at the local level. For her PhD project, Cindy will explore the potential contributions of cities in England in realizing the right to food. Using Leeds and York as case studies, she will apply social constructivist theories and a mix of socio-legal research methods to answer the following research questions: What does the right to food mean in cities? How can the local food discourse be framed in a way that advances right to food claims? How could urban food governance structures be strengthened as a form of rights-based practice to advance the right to food?

Cindy is based at The University of York’s Centre for Applied Human Rights and the York Law School. She is supervised by Dr Ioana Cismas and Professor Paul Gready.