Karla Bayas Velastegui

Karla Bayas (she/her) is a DPhil student in Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Oxford. Her research examines how law produces sacrificial zones and legitimises the conditions under which certain lives, territories, and forms of existence are rendered expendable. Focusing on Ecuador, her work interrogates the legal architectures of extraction through which necropolitics, ecocide, and environmental racism are produced, normalised, and sustained.

She holds an MSt in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from the University of Oxford, graduating with distinction. She earned her law degree, with a minor in Criminal Law, from the Faculty of Jurisprudence at Universidad San Francisco de Quito, where she also obtained bachelor’s degrees in International Relations and one in Liberal Arts.

Karla is the first Ecuadorian to receive the Rhodes Scholarship through the Global Constituency.

She is the Co-Funder of the foundation Rescatemos a Penipe, a foundation dedicated to supporting marginalised communities, particularly women and children, who face systemic abuse and barriers to essential services and fundamental rights. Through its community-based initiatives, the foundation works across five key areas: healthcare and nutrition, legal aid, environmental protection, education, and community outreach through sustainable development projects, arts, and recreation.