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Program on Law and Political Economy

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Yochai Benkler

Faculty Director

Yochai Benkler is the Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard Law School, and faculty co-director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.

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    Sharon Block

    Faculty Affiliate

    Sharon Block is a Professor of Practice and Executive Director of the Center for Labor and a Just Economy at Harvard Law School. Prior to returning to Harvard, she served as the senior official delegated the duties of the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in President Joe Biden’s White House.

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      Nikolas Bowie

      Faculty Affiliate

      Nikolas Bowie is an assistant professor of law at Harvard Law School. He is a historian who teaches courses in federal constitutional law, state constitutional law, and local government law. His research focuses on critical legal histories of democracy in the United States.

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        Maddie Chang

        Student Fellow (2024-25)

        Maddie Chang is a third-year JD student at Harvard Law School. Before law school, she worked on policy to address algorithmic discrimination and on the governance of facial recognition technology.

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          Guy-Uriel E. Charles

          Faculty Affiliate

          Guy-Uriel Charles is the Charles J. Ogletree Jr. Professor of Law at Harvard Law School where he also directs the Charles Hamilton Institute for Race and Justice.  He writes about how law mediates political power and how law addresses racial subordination.

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            Andrew Crespo

            Andrew Manuel Crespo

            Faculty Affiliate

            Andrew Manuel Crespo is the Morris Wasserstein Public Interest Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, where he teaches criminal law and procedure and serves as the Executive Faculty Director of the Institute to End Mass Incarceration.

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              Kate Davies

              Program Coordinator

              Kate Davies graduated Wellesley College in 2019 with a BA in Art History and English. She is an aspiring law student and was previously an administrative coordinator at Northeastern University School of Law. In her free time, Kate serves as the Grants and Development Specialist at the Project to Decolonize Coffee.

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                Vanessa Daza Castillo

                Student Fellow (2024-25)

                Vanessa Daza Castillo is an SJD candidate at Harvard Law School, where she researches the intersections of gender, political ecology, and law. Her dissertation examines the changes in household size, composition, and productive/reproductive functions brought about by the establishment of a mining economy in La Guajira, Colombia.

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                  Christine A. Desan

                  Faculty Affiliate

                  Christine Desan teaches about the international monetary system, the constitutional law of money, constitutional history, political economy, and legal theory.  She is the co-founder of Harvard’s Program on the Study of Capitalism.

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                    Ryan D. Doerfler

                    Faculty Affiliate

                    Ryan Doerfler is a Professor of Law at the Harvard Law School. His research focuses on the role of the judiciary within a democratic system.

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                      Christina Ge

                      Student Fellow (2024-25)

                      Christina Ge is a second-year JD student at Harvard Law School and writes about how state constitutions can contribute to more just and inclusive labor protections. She has worked in legal economic research, provided social welfare direct services, and studied redistributive political philosophy at Brown.

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                        Brian Highsmith

                        Academic Fellow (2023-25)

                        Brian Highsmith is a PhD Candidate in Government and Social Policy at Harvard University. After graduating from Yale Law School, he was a Skadden Fellow at the National Consumer Law Center. He previously worked on domestic economic policy, including in a U.S. Senate office and at President Obama’s National Economic Council.

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                          Sanjay Jolly

                          Executive Director & Program Fellow

                          Sanjay Jolly is an attorney, organizer, and scholar who studies the political economy of information technologies and global financial networks. He was previously the C. Edwin Baker Fellow at the media reform organization Free Press.

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                            Andrew Keefe

                            Student Fellow (2024-25)

                            Andrew Keefe is a JD/PhD student in Sociology and Social Policy at Harvard University. His research relies on mixed and comparative-historical methods to examine the political economy of criminal law and procedure.

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                              Michael Klarman

                              Faculty Affiliate

                              Michael Klarman is the Charles Warren Professor of Legal History at Harvard Law School, where he joined the faculty in 2008. 

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                                Ali Latash

                                Visiting Scholar (2024-25)

                                Ali Latash is a PhD candidate at the University of Sydney. His research focuses on corporate theory, international crime, and the political economy of international law. He previously worked as a lawyer at the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and served as a sessional lecturer at the University of Sydney.

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                                  Ava Liu

                                  Postdoctoral Fellow in the Political Economy of Law, Technology, and Labor (2024-25)

                                  Ava Liu is a joint fellow with LPE@HLS, the Berkman Klein Center, and the Center for Labor and a Just Economy. Her projects examine the relations between technological development, legal institutions, and labor relations in international and domestic markets. Before returning to Harvard Law School, she lived and practiced law in Asia for three years and was a research associate at Oxford University’s China, Law and Development Project.

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                                    Alexandra Natapoff

                                    Faculty Affiliate

                                    Alexandra Natapoff is an award-winning legal scholar and criminal justice expert. She writes about criminal courts, public defense, plea bargaining, wrongful convictions, and race and inequality in the criminal system.

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                                      Divya Nimmagadda

                                      Student Fellow (2024-25)

                                      Divya Nimmagadda is a third-year JD student at Harvard Law School. She is interested in expanding avenues of collective participation through voting and labor rights work, and the intersection of those fields with artificial intelligence and other technology.

                                      Read more about Divya Nammagadda

                                        Gilbert Placeres

                                        Student Fellow (2024-25)

                                        Gilbert Placeres is a fourth-year joint degree JD/MPP student at Harvard Law School and the Kennedy School of Government. Informed by his previous experience as an organizer in Miami, he studies the possibility of federal protection of local policymaking from state preemption.

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                                          Daphna Renan

                                          Faculty Affiliate

                                          Daphna Renan is the Peter B. Munroe and Mary J. Munroe Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Her work focuses on the U.S. presidency and the design of American democracy from the perspective of administrative and structural constitutional law.

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                                            Benjamin I. Sachs

                                            Faculty Affiliate

                                            Benjamin Sachs is the Kestnbaum Professor of Labor and Industry at Harvard Law School and a leading expert in the field of labor law and labor relations. 

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                                              Lea Steininger

                                              Visiting Scholar (2024-25)

                                              Lea Steininger is an economist who studies monetary policy. She is from Vienna, is a former central banker, and is particularly interested in questions of macro-finance, political economy and epistemology.

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                                                Samara Trilling

                                                Student Fellow (2024-25)

                                                Samara Trilling is a third-year JD student at Harvard Law School interested in strengthening anti-monopoly law, building worker power, and regulating tech. Samara has a degree in computer science from Columbia University with a specialization in AI and a concentration in history and spent seven years as a software engineer prior to law school building anti-eviction tools at Justfix, city master-planning software at Sidewalk Labs, and digital divide and democratic news reporting tools at Google.

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                                                  Laura Weinrib

                                                  Faculty Affiliate

                                                  Laura Weinrib is the Fred N. Fishman Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School and Suzanne Young Murray Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

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