AUWCL Welcomes New Faculty for the 2016-17 Academic Year
 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WASHINGTON, Aug. 17, 2016 – American University Washington College of Law is pleased to welcome Susan Franck, Rebecca Hamilton, and Anita Sinha to the full-time faculty this fall, in addition to the beginning of the tenure of our new dean Camille Nelson.  

Also joining the AUWCL community are five new practitioners-in-residence in our renowned Clinical Program: Hillary Brill (Intellectual Property Clinic), Jonathan Grossberg (Tax Clinic), Jean Han (Women and the Law Clinic), Sherizaan Minwalla (International Human Rights Law Clinic), and Andrea Parra (Immigrant Justice Clinic).

"We are proud to welcome this outstanding new group of faculty with expertise in a broad array of legal fields from international economic law to national security and immigration law," said Nelson, who became dean of American University Washington College of Law on July 25. “They bring additional expertise to our exceptional community of highly recognized teacher-scholars.”

Read Dean Nelson’s July 25 Welcome Message to the Community

MORE: Dean Nelson Named to New Governing Council for ABA Center for Innovation

New Tenure/Tenure-Track Faculty

Susan Franck, an expert in international economic law, joins the law school as professor of law. Having been on the faculty at Washington & Lee University Law School for nearly a decade, she is best known for her groundbreaking empirical scholarship on international investment law and dispute settlement. She also served as an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska and was a visiting professor at Vanderbilt University Law School, Fordham University Law School, and the University of Minnesota Law School. With over 120 presentations and more than 40 publications to her credit, her scholarship has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, discussed in a major U.S. Department of State report, and received multiple awards. Franck has provided expert commentary to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes, Inter-American Development Bank, Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation, and developed and developing states. Franck is the Chair of the Academic Council of the Institute for Transnational Arbitration, an elected member of the American Law Institute, and a member of the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law. Franck is qualified to practice law in England and Wales, Minnesota, and the District of Columbia.

Rebecca Hamilton joins the law school as assistant professor of law. Her research and teaching focus on national security law, international law, and criminal law. Her scholarship draws on her experience prosecuting genocide and war crimes, as well as her work in conflict zones as a foreign correspondent. She is the author of Fighting for Darfur: Public Action and the Struggle to Stop Genocide (Palgrave Macmillan) which analyzes citizen activism and the effort to stop mass atrocities. Hamilton previously served as a lawyer in the prosecutorial division of the International Criminal Court and has worked in the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. She is a graduate of the University of Sydney and Harvard Law School. Before joining AUWCL, Hamilton was an associate-in-law at Columbia Law School. Her papers are available at SSRN, and her latest article is forthcoming in the Yale Journal of International Law. Prior to entering academia, Hamilton worked as a journalist for the Washington Post and Reuters. A Pulitzer Center grantee, and former fellow at New America and at Open Society Foundations, she has written for outlets including Foreign Affairs, The New Yorker, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, and The New Republic, and has appeared on PBS Newshour, NPR, BBC, and Al-Jazeera.

Anita Sinha joins the law school as assistant professor of law and director of the International Human Rights Law Clinic. After more than 10 years of litigation and advocacy experience on behalf of indigent communities, Sinha joined the AUWCL faculty in 2012 as a practitioner-in-residence in the Immigrant Justice Clinic. She began her career as a Skadden Fellow with the Northwest Immigrant Justice Project, and in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Sinha led civil rights litigation and human rights advocacy on behalf of displaced New Orleans residents. As a clinical teacher, she has supervised students on U.S. immigration cases, as well as transnational and international projects. Sinha has been cited in several major news outlets, including The New York Times and Associated Press, and is a Huffington Post contributor. Her research and scholarship address human rights issues related to forced migration and detention, and the intersection of immigration and constitutional law. Sinha graduated summa cum laude from Barnard College, and cum laude from New York University School of Law.  

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About American University Washington College of Law
In 1896, American University Washington College of Law became the first law school in the country founded by women. More than 120 years since its founding, this law school community is grounded in the values of equality, diversity, and intellectual rigor. The law school's nationally and internationally recognized programs (in clinical legal education, trial advocacy, international law, and intellectual property to name a few) and dedicated faculty provide its JD, LL.M., and SJD students with the critical skills and values to have an immediate impact as students and as graduates, in Washington, DC and around the world. For more information, visit wcl.american.edu.