The American University of Paris is proud to announce that Israel Fregoso G’25 (MSc in Human Rights and Data Science) is the winner of the 2025 Westin Scholar Award.

This award is bestowed by the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) to students who demonstrate a strong commitment to privacy protection and position themselves as advocates for human rights within their field of study. Winners of this award are selected by a committee of faculty.  

As a graduate student at AUP, Fregoso's research and policy interests reside at the intersection of climate, displacement and data protection.  

He has produced policy recommendations on legal instruments such as the EU’s Data Governance Act and its “data altruism mechanism,” as well as the GDPR, neurotechnologies, and enhanced neuro-privacy. In 2024, Israel attended the IAPP Europe Data Protection Congress where he cultivated relationships with professionals working on data infrastructures and privacy protection. 

Currently, Fregoso is preparing for a 6-month internship at Compagnie de Saint-Gobain in Courbevoie beginning in September 2025. As a legal intern, he will be working under the supervision of the Data Protection and AI lawyer performing tasks related to privacy compliance, data flow mapping, and redacting newsletters for company-wide training and awareness.  

As a part of the Westin Scholar Award, Fregoso will benefit from a two-year membership with the IAPP, unlimited access to their online training resources, three complimentary exams for IAPP certifications (such as the CIPP, CIPM and CIPT) and a prize of €1,000. With this support, he anticipates that he will be able to apply the fundamental concepts of his training in real world scenarios. 

AUP’s MSc in Human Rights and Data Science prepares rising professionals to play highly specialized roles bridging the worlds of human rights and data science—an emerging and dynamic field of expertise in increasingly high demand. Over the course of three semesters, students have the flexibility to tailor their studies to their fields of interest and will incorporate experiential learning into their studies by taking part in prestigious internships in France and across Europe.