Aiswarya Murali joined Southern Coalition for Social Justice in 2024 as Counsel and a Penn Carey Law LLM Public Interest Fellow for the Environmental Justice team.
Aiswarya grew up in both the United Arab Emirates and India. She earned her bachelor’s degree in law from the National Law University, Jodhpur, India. Following this, she practiced as an attorney at the Supreme Court of India and various lower courts. She also served as a judicial clerk for Honorable Justice Suryakant, a judge at the Supreme Court of India. After her clerkship, she worked closely with the non-profit Initiative for Climate Action. She also led several initiatives to raise awareness about climate change, co-designed and co-taught a course on climate justice practice, and organized capacity-building activities for climate leaders.
In 2024, Aiswarya earned a Master of Laws (LL.M.) with distinction from the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, where she was a Dean’s Merit Scholar. At Penn, she represented the Environmental Law Project and was a Penn Climate Leader Fellow. She also worked as a research assistant to Professors Shelly Welton, Rangita de Silva de Alwis, and Beth Simmons.
Aiswarya’s core areas of research interest include climate justice, just energy transitions, systemic transformation, and building urban resilience to climate change. She is a strong advocate for inter-species egalitarianism and deep and spiritual ecology.