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Hans Hogrefe

Hans Hogrefe joined PHR in 2011 as Chief Policy Officer and Washington DC office Director. He brings more than 15 years of human rights, advocacy, and policy experience to the position.

Previously, Hogrefe was the Democratic Staff Director for the bipartisan Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in the US House of Representatives, serving Commission Co-Chairman James P. McGovern.

Prior to his work at the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, Hogrefe worked for the House Committee on Foreign Affairs as the Senior Professional Majority Staff member, where he was responsible for the development, drafting, and the legislative implementation of human rights legislation.

For 13 years, the German-born Hogrefe served the only Holocaust Survivor elected to the US Congress, Tom Lantos, as a Committee Staffer, Senior Legislative Aide, and Executive Director of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus. In that capacity, Hogrefe cultivated this group from a 13 member voluntary organization in 1995 into a bicameral 240-member entity in 2006, which was formally institutionalized by the Speaker of the House of Representatives as the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in 2008.

Hogrefe received his Master’s degree in English, political science, and history from Westphalian Wilhems University in Muenster, Germany.