Steve Swerdlow, Esq. serves as Director of Oversight and Founding Partner of Political Prisoner Watch. He is a human rights lawyer and Associate Professor of the Practice of Human Rights at the University of Southern California. An expert on the former Soviet region, he teaches international human rights law, research, and advocacy.

Previously, he served as Senior Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch from 2010 to 2019, where he led work on Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and founded the organization's Kyrgyzstan field office. His extensive field experience includes missions to Azerbaijan, Moldova, Russia, and Kazakhstan. He received his J.D. from UC Berkeley School of Law and an M.A. in International Affairs from Columbia University.

Olivia Batist holds a BA in International Relations from the University of Southern California, where she conducted field research with Professor Swerdlow in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan on political prisoners, constitutional law, election fraud, and political repression.

Her research focuses on human rights and democratic governance in the post-Soviet region, and she has contributed to expert witness research on political persecution and asylum claims. She is also a recipient of a litigation fellowship at a plaintiff-side civil litigation firm, where she contributes to case development and legal research in efforts to hold institutions accountable on behalf of victims.

Claire Krysler holds a BA in Political Science from the University of Southern California, with an emphasis in cross-national relations and human rights. During her studies she completed two field-based human rights courses across Georgia, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan.

At Political Prisoner Watch she works on the registry's data pipeline: processing incoming casework, verifying detention records against primary sources before publication, and monitoring the social-media channels where cases in her region often surface first. Her regional concentration is Kyrgyzstan.