Third Annual Law and STEM Junior Scholars' Conference

THIRD ANNUAL JUNIOR FACULTY FORUM FOR LAW AND STEM

Stanford Law School, Stanford, California
September 27-28, 2019

Call for Papers

The Northwestern, Penn and Stanford Law Schools are pleased to announce that the Third Annual Junior Faculty Forum will be held at Stanford on September 27-28, 2019. The Forum is dedicated to interdisciplinary scholarship focusing on the intersection of Law and Science-Technology-Engineering-Mathematics (STEM).  The Inaugural Forum was held in October 2017 at Penn Law, and the second Forum in September 2018 at Northwestern. The forum is currently seeking submissions from junior faculty interested in presenting papers at the forum.  The deadline for submissions is Friday, June 14. 

Presenters will be chosen on a blind basis from among those submitting papers.  Senior scholars, not necessarily from Northwestern, Penn, and Stanford, will comment on each paper.  The audience will include the participating junior faculty, faculty from the host institutions, and invited guests. Participating junior faculty are expected to stay for the full duration of the Forum.

Our goal is to promote interdisciplinary research exploring how developments in STEM are affecting law and vice versa.  Preference will be given to papers with the strong interdisciplinary approaches integrating these two areas of study.

The Forum invites submissions on any topic related to the intersection of law and any STEM field.  Potential topics include (but are not limited to):

• 3D printing
• Artificial intelligence
• Autonomous vehicles
• Bitcoin and other blockchain technologies
• Computational law
• Customized medicine
• Genetics and epigenetics
• Machine learning and predictive analytics
• Nanotechnology
• Neuroscience and law
• Online security and privacy
• Regulation of online platforms
• Robotics
• Synthetic biology
• Virtual and augmented reality

A jury of accomplished scholars with expertise in the particular topic will select the papers to be presented.  Suggestions of possible commentators are also welcome.

There is no publication commitment.  Northwestern, Penn, and Stanford will pay presenters’ and commentators’ travel expenses, though international flights may be only partially reimbursed.

QUALIFICATIONS: To be eligible, an author must be teaching at a U.S. school of higher education in a tenured or tenure-track position and must have received their first tenure-track appointment no more than seven years before the conference.  American citizens or permanent residents teaching abroad are also eligible to submit provided that they have held a faculty position or the equivalent, including positions comparable to junior faculty positions in research institutions, for less than seven years, and that they earned their last degree after 2008.  We accept jointly authored submissions so long as the presenting coauthor is individually eligible to participate in the Forum and none of the other coauthors has taught in a tenured or tenure-track position for more than seven years. Papers that will be published prior to the meeting in September 28-29, 2018, are not eligible.  Authors may submit more than one paper, but no author will be allowed to present more than one paper.

PAPER SUBMISSION PROCEDURE: Electronic submissions should be sent to [email protected].  The deadline for submissions is Friday, June 14, 2019.  Please remove all references to the author(s) in the paper.  Please include in the text of the email a cover note listing your name, the title of your paper, and the general topic under which your paper falls.  Any questions about the submission procedure should be directed both to Professor Mark Lemley ([email protected]) and Jeff Spencer ([email protected]).

FURTHER INFORMATION: Inquiries concerning the Forum should be sent to David Schwartz at the Northwestern University School of Law, Christopher Yoo at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, or Mark Lemley at the Stanford Law School.