Introducing the Inaugural Cohort of Columbia Law Academic Scholars

Hometown: Mountain Lakes, New Jersey

What inspired you to apply to the Academic Scholars Program? 
The Academic Scholars Program offered a way for me to attend law school while still keeping my academic aspirations alive. The job market is so competitive that I knew the program’s professional guidance would be invaluable to my career. I also wanted to develop close mentoring relationships with faculty who model socially engaged and policy-oriented careers. The Academic Scholars Program is what brought me to Columbia, and I’m so excited to spend more time with this community over the next three years!

What do you hope to achieve as an Academic Scholar? 
I hope to work closely with members of the Law School faculty to craft a research project that can stay with me after law school. Joining the program in its first year, I also hope to help shape a supportive community for Columbia students interested in law teaching.

What is your area of focus? 
My interests focus in two main areas: The first is systems-level questions around how we might shape norms, incentives, policy, regulation, and law to strengthen diverse political communities and facilitate democratic processes. My second area of interest involves health and science broadly. Working in bioethics over the past few years, I have thought a lot about science communication, and I’m interested in how expertise functions (and might function better) in non-specialized courts dealing with increasingly technical trials. I’m also passionate about how carceral institutions are particularly poorly set up for the increasing population of older adults they house, so I have strong personal and academic interests in decarceration interventions like “Second Look” legislation, compassionate release, sentencing reform, and community-based support for those released from jails and prisons. I plan to spend this summer working toward the release of unfairly sentenced prisoners convicted of serious crimes who have served large portions of their sentences.

Hometown: Bronx, New York City

What inspired you to apply to the Academic Scholars Program?
I want to continuously explore and reimagine core legal theories that impact the way our society is structured and to contribute new perspectives to these conversations. Having had the opportunity to learn from and work with really great professors, I was shown how the frameworks that are used to teach core topics in the law can greatly impact the way that generations of lawyers approach and understand the legal system.

What do you hope to achieve as an academic scholar?
I hope to gain an understanding of the process and challenges of pursuing a career in academia and learn what good legal scholarship looks like. I would like to utilize the research [aspect of the program] to home in on the area of law that I would like to focus on and complete a publishable paper. I am excited to be a part of this program because I think that a career in academia can seem very daunting to pursue, particularly for someone who had never really been exposed to that career path. I appreciate this opportunity to really understand what this career entails.

What is your area of focus?
I would like to focus my research on the law of democracy through an abolitionist perspective. I am particularly interested in what legal and philosophical tools and theories can be used to achieve the goals of abolition democracy.

Hometown: Cambridge, Massachusetts 

What inspired you to apply to the Academic Scholars Program? 
I’ve been interested in law and legal problems for some time, and I applied to my Ph.D. [in political theory and philosophy at Princeton University] knowing that I wanted to combine it with a J.D. and try to pursue a career in legal scholarship. 

What do you hope to achieve as an academic scholar? 
I’m primarily hoping to use the program as an opportunity to build relationships with faculty mentors who will support my research and writing during law school. If all goes well, I’ll be able to integrate this work and the connections I make with law faculty as I enter the dissertation phase of my Ph.D. now that I’m done with graduate courses.

What is your area of focus? 
Very broadly speaking, my focus is on the normative analysis of legal rules. . . .Asking not how the law works but how it should work. I’ve been especially interested in topics connected with evidence law. . . . I’m also interested in related problems in employment law having to do with what kinds of evidence employers can permissibly use in deciding who to hire and why. I have some secondary interests in theories of distributive justice and in ethical and legal problems posed by Big Tech, especially social media companies, and the challenges involved in regulating content online. Before beginning graduate school, I spent a year working on ethics and technology initiatives at a research center at Stanford, and I’m always looking for ways to engage more with those problems.

Hometown: Toledo, Ohio

What inspired you to apply to the Academic Scholars Program? 
Throughout law school, I have found myself posing questions in response to my coursework and fieldwork, but I have had little space to critically develop those inquiries in a structured, supportive environment. I am excited for this program to help me advance as a thinker by allowing me greater access to community, mentorship, and the space to question, research, and write more thoroughly during and beyond law school.

What do you hope to achieve as an academic scholar? 
I look forward to building a portfolio of scholarship that deepens an understanding of incarceration, neoliberalism, due process law, and administrative law. I intend to ground my work in critical legal studies, critical race theory, and legal history. I hope to advance criminal legal scholarship by unearthing the historical, political, and structural contingencies of the U.S. carceral system.

What is your area of focus?
One of my areas of scholarly interest focuses on race and prosecution, while the other examines reforms in prison infrastructure and carceral management as a means toward more “efficient” modes of incarceration. Current understandings of the prosecutorial function often operate on an assumption of timelessness, usually foregrounding separation of powers doctrine, judicial competence, or a law and economics approach. Such race-neutral conceptions of prosecutorial decision-making miss a crucial opportunity to understand through a historically contingent framework the inequities in today’s prosecution system. . . . The other area of my scholarly interest centers on prison reforms rooted in efficiency and decarceration efforts focused on reducing the number of people in jails and prisons. This is an especially relevant inquiry during a time when the U.S. incarceration rate is at its lowest in nearly a quarter-century. For those working to dismantle mass incarceration, what should we make of downsizing efforts that do not significantly transform modern incarceration infrastructure or challenge cemented technologies of racial control?

Hometown: Potomac, Maryland

What inspired you to apply to the Academic Scholars Program?
I was motivated by close collaboration with faculty, opportunities to pursue legal research, and participation in a cohort of inspired and accomplished peers.

What do you hope to achieve as an academic scholar? 
I hope to find an avenue in which to combine my interests in legal and statistical research and scholarship.

What is your area of focus? 
I am a 1L at the Law School and am pursuing a Ph.D. in statistics and data science at Cornell, where I study theoretical approaches to algorithmic fairness problems. I am interested broadly in litigating algorithms. For example, as algorithms and statistical models play a more prominent role in legal action, how can courts identify when standards in, for instance, discrimination law have been violated by artificial decision-makers? I am also interested in the intersection of causal inference and legal decision-making as well as in statistical methods in legal research more broadly.

Hometown: Atlanta

What inspired you to apply to the Academic Scholars Program? 
While spending a few weeks in Beijing this past summer, I witnessed so many developments occurring in China—particularly in the tech industry—that helped inform my view of the ongoing tech regulation debates here in the United States. The Academic Scholars Program presented a great opportunity to dive into these issues and produce my own analysis through legal research.

What do you hope to achieve as an academic scholar? 
I hope to improve my ability to think through the components of an argument and how they fit together as well as hone my ability to critique and revise my own writing. I’m also excited to be part of the biweekly seminar and to learn from the other scholars who are all doing fascinating research in their respective fields.

What is your area of focus? 
My area of research lies at the intersection of tech antitrust and foreign relations law, with a focus on China-related issues.

Hometown: Lugano, Switzerland

What inspired you to apply to the Academic Scholars Program?
The Academic Scholars Program allows me the opportunity to get direct insight from faculty mentors in a way that is unparalleled. [It will be extremely valuable] to be able to start independent research [when I am in my] second year of law school so that I can have a compelling body of work by the time I finish both my J.D. and my Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia. Lastly, the emphasis on collaboration that the Academic Scholars Program promotes is unique, and I have strongly benefited from sharing my ideas and discussing them with my peers. 

What do you hope to achieve as an academic scholar?
I hope to achieve a level of academic expertise so that I can share my research with fellow students and scholars. I believe that part of a world-class education involves the ability and desire to give back to the academic community that developed you. In conjunction with the program, I hope to organize talks related to legal and critical theory, work as a teaching and research assistant, and help share the unique perspective the Academic Scholars Program provides. Additionally, I look forward to continuing my work with Professor Bernard E. Harcourt, my faculty mentor. The Academic Scholars Program has afforded me, through his mentorship, a full view of what a life devoted to scholarship entails. Finally, I hope to develop my dissertation for the Ph.D. [in political science from Columbia] as well as work toward publishing articles related to my research. 

What is your area of focus?
I specialize in critical and democratic liberal theory and how they intersect with moral philosophy and psychology. 

Hometown: New York City

What inspired you to apply to the Academic Scholars Program? 
When I started law school, a career in legal academia wasn’t on my radar. I did come to law school knowing I wanted to have a public interest career and focus on the criminal legal system. Through the Public Interest/Public Service Fellows Program, I had the opportunity to hear Professor Alexis Hoag speak about her career in capital defense and her transition into academia. That was the first time I realized that was a potential public interest career path. I was lucky to have Professor Philip Genty for Civil Procedure, whose approach to teaching is clearly informed by his experiences working with people affected by incarceration. His perspective helped me see how and why legal developments matter to real people. In addition, I had 1L courses with two wonderful Columbia Law alumnae: Professors Maeve Glass ’09 and Sarah Seo ’07, which made the career path easier to imagine. Getting to be a student again, after six years in the nonprofit sector, also helped me realize that I’m happiest when I’m learning something new. I like the idea of getting to work on scholarship as well as working with students. 

What do you hope to achieve as an academic scholar? 
I have a lot to learn about potential academic pathways and how the profession works, so I’m looking forward to learning that from the seminar and faculty mentorship. I’m also excited to engage with current legal scholarship. 

What is your area of focus? 
I’m interested in criminal law and incarceration. I’ve spent much of this term learning about administrative law in the prison context and the extent to which notions of public input and public accountability apply to state departments of correction.

Hometown: Seoul, South Korea

What inspired you to apply to the Academic Scholars Program?
My curiosity about academia began to emerge in the first year of law school. I was intrigued by the level of intellectual autonomy professors enjoy as well as the opportunity to engage with students through teaching. I shared my interest with a professor and, per her suggestion, began keeping a list of issues I encountered in classes that I wanted to delve deeper into. However, in the midst of school and work obligations, it became increasingly difficult to keep my interest in academia a priority. Thus when I learned about the program, I thought that it would be the perfect vehicle through which to turn my burgeoning curiosity into concrete steps. 

What do you hope to achieve as an academic scholar?
In addition to engaging in independent research, I look forward to developing meaningful relationships with professors and like-minded students through the program’s seminar and mentorship components. I also hope to gain a more thorough understanding of the expectations of the job market and to develop a personal plan for executing my interest in an academic career. 

What is your area of focus?
I am passionate about psychology and law. In my past research experiences, I focused on the intersection of social psychology and criminal law, in particular ways to improve the legal system in order to advance racial justice. My ongoing research project is an experimental study comparing the effects of implicit references to racial stereotypes, such as referring to African American men as “vultures” and “predators,” and explicit invocations of racial stereotypes on perceptions of fear and reasonableness. . . . Over the course of my law school career, I discovered that I also find captivating evidence, corporate, and intellectual property law. Through the program, I wish to explore these various areas of potential research and solidify my identity as a legal scholar. 

Hometown: Passaic, New Jersey

What inspired you to apply to the Academic Scholars Program?
Something I've spent a lot of time reflecting on is the fact that very few people who are the children of immigrants and grow up in low-income public housing get an opportunity to even consider becoming a professor.  I’m very hopeful that the Academic Scholars Program will help me figure out if this is the right path for me to serve the public interest—ideally by inspiring future generations of lawyers to consider the impact the law has on many low-income communities of color.

What do you hope to achieve as an academic scholar?
My research and scholarship broadly focus on the intersections between civil rights and liberties and the interplay between constitutional law, public policy, and the administrative state. Through this lens, I hope to consider which areas of the law and public policy are most suitable for protecting the rights of those that are underserved by our current system.

What do you plan to do after graduating from Columbia Law?
I hope that after graduating I will have a long career serving the public. In the short term, I hope to spend time as a judicial clerk and a litigator. Ultimately, I hope that, as either a professor or public servant, I can help advance public policies to make our nation more equitable.

Hometown: Atlanta

What inspired you to apply to the Academic Scholars Program?
As a first-generation graduate student from a non-Ivy undergraduate program, it was hard to see myself one day standing in my professor’s shoes. Professors Alexis Hoag and Bernard E. Harcourt (and many others) helped change that. I wanted to be an academic scholar to find the advice, institutional support, and resources not just to see myself as a legal historian but to really make that dream happen.

What do you hope to achieve as an academic scholar?
My two main goals are to first chart my own path to legal teaching and scholarship (i.e. write—a lot—this year) and second to help the program identify new ways to support other potential first-generation legal academics to see themselves in their professor’s shoes.

What is your area of focus?
History! I come at almost any question from that background—what are the roots of this issue and how did they develop into their current form? My undergraduate history studies focused on the late 1800s to the early 1900s, and much of my law school work has been tracking the influence of slavery and racism on many elements of the modern criminal code, particularly around capital punishment. Within that, I have a strong interest in how legal history connects with comparative law and international law. As an aspiring legal historian, I hope to both find the origins of many social issues but also to open up new pathways for advocates.

What do you plan to do after graduating from Columbia Law?
I plan to begin my career in criminal law or human rights advocacy. While down the line I would like to take a step back and pursue a Ph.D. or post-doctoral research, my first step is to serve the communities I care about. I firmly believe people are the experts in their own condition and their own history, so I have much to learn first before trying to enter academia.

Hometown: Greenwich, Connecticut

What inspired you to apply to the Academic Scholars Program? 
I come from business school academia—I was an assistant professor of finance at the Georgetown University McDonough School of Business prior to my 1L year—but I’ve always respected and admired legal scholarship. I was excited by the opportunity to collaborate with professors whose work I've found influential since I was in the early years of my Ph.D. Plus, in my opinion, Columbia Law School has the best business law program!

What do you hope to achieve as an academic scholar? 
I would like to explore the intersection of business and the law and ultimately pursue a career as a legal academic. I am currently a research fellow in the Ira M. Millstein Center for Global Markets and Corporate Ownership at Columbia Law School, which focuses on the issues facing corporations and the capital markets. Right now I'm working with Professor Eric Talley on a project dedicated to understanding what goes on in corporate boardrooms.

What is your area of focus?
My interests draw on my experience in both the business and legal worlds. In particular, I focus on bankruptcy, corporate finance, credit markets, financial intermediation, and contracts. I am currently the co-host of Columbia Law and the Millstein Center’s podcast Beyond Unprecedented: The Post-Pandemic Economy, which examines topics including the evolution of labor, investor trends, shareholder activism, and more.