Ziana Ukani

Ziana Ukani (J.D. expected 2029) graduated cum laude from Rice University in 2025, where she received a B.A. in English with a concentration in Creative Writing and a minor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. She was also inducted as a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society.

As an undergraduate, Ziana served as an editor for the Rice Journal of Public Policy, a section editor for the Rice Review Literary Magazine, and as a co-chair for the Rice Program Council. She worked on both ecology and humanities research, and presented her humanities research at the Rice Summer Undergraduate Research Symposium, at which she was awarded special recognition. She spent her other summers interning with Bloomsday Literary, a Houston-based independent press that publishes underrepresented authors, and studying Global Health at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Prior to attending Texas Law, Ziana interned with the Environmental Investigation Agency, where she worked under the Extractive Industries Campaign, researching the UN Environment Programme Minamata Convention on Mercury. She helped develop an international policy proposal regarding mercury extraction that was distributed to delegates at COP6 of the convention in Geneva, Switzerland.