Theresa Bender-Säbelkampf is an Austrian human rights professional and journalist. She holds a Master’s degree in translation studies for Italian and Russian from the University of Vienna and underwent academic studies in Russia and Italy. After working with Russia's leading human rights society "Memorial", she also received a European Master's in Human Rights and Democratization (E.MA) from the Global Campus in Venice. In her master thesis, she investigated the issue of domestic violence among IDPs from Eastern Ukraine and worked in Donbas. As a journalist, she works with human rights issues and reported from Eastern Ukraine and Lampedusa.