By Jonathan Riggs | Photography by Stephanie Yantz

Annabelle Werner has a certain métier for packing a suitcase.

Born in Alabama, the Army brat grew up living in Tennessee, Wisconsin, Kansas, Iowa, Pennsylvania, California and even Germany. In high school, she completed a service learning program in Laos, which inspired her to pursue international human rights opportunities at UCLA.

These pursuits coalesced into a pragmatic education on global governance and international development. She has volunteered at a community legal aid center in Tanzania, interned at an international justice nongovernmental organization in Switzerland, studied comparative judicial politics in France and interned remotely with a humanitarian NGO in Cameroon.

Ultimately, Werner felt most drawn to atrocity prevention and the rule of law, a focus she discovered after interning with the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, going on to become a virtual student federal service intern with the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations in the U.S. Department of State. Accordingly, she crafted a unique triple major at UCLA, combining political science, international development studies and a self-designed focus in international human rights law.

“I discovered through the College Honors Program that you could create your own major with a capstone project, and so I was able to tie together everything I was looking for,” says Werner, who is the editor of a student-run foreign affairs magazine and helped launch a digital publication focused on migration and human rights. “I also applied to the Undergraduate Scholars Research Program, earned a $6,000 scholarship and expanded the capstone to a yearlong thesis on the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights. I even spent part of my summer in Arusha, Tanzania, the home of the African Court.”

Juggling all this may seem overwhelming, but Werner is supremely disciplined — a quality reflected in her commitment to supplementing her studies with her career as a UCLA athlete in both cross country and track and field.

“I just came from a workout practice at 7 a.m., and then we have weight training later, so my athletics definitely keep my routine structured,” she says with a laugh. “The experience challenges me to keep pushing myself, and it allows me to stay mindful each day.”

Although she plans on gaining expertise in a particular region or conflict first through research or journalism, Werner’s goal is to become an international human rights lawyer.

“My experience and education have shown me how the law can be used as a tool to help actualize human rights, and I want to be a part of that,” she says. “One of the beauties of UCLA is that you are encouraged to channel your energy and curiosity into whatever unique area you’re passionate about — and there are always people who want to help you get where you’re going.”