Deputy Coordinator for Countering Violent Extremism, U.S. Department of State
Christopher K. Harnisch is the Deputy Coordinator for Countering Violent Extremism. In this capacity, he is responsible for developing and implementing strategies to counter terrorist messaging and recruitment, including terrorists’ use of the Internet. He also oversees terrorist detention policy.
Prior to his appointment to the Bureau of Counterterrorism, Harnisch served as the Director for Transnational Threats and the Director for Afghanistan at the National Security Council. A Virginia native, he returned to the area following several years in Silicon Valley where he served as a Strategic Sourcing and Operations Product Development Manager at Apple. Before his time in the private sector, Harnisch worked in the public policy and defense arenas. From 2011 to 2012, he served as an Army Intelligence Officer on NATO’s counter-corruption task force in Afghanistan. Previous to that, he worked on the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute, where he researched and wrote about al-Qa’ida’s emerging safe havens, focusing especially on those in Yemen and Somalia. He served on the staff of Vice President Dick Cheney.
Chris earned a B.A. in International Studies from Middlebury College and an MBA and M.A. in International Relations from Yale University.
He has published pieces on foreign policy in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and National Review Online, and he has appeared as a guest analyst on various public panels and television and radio broadcasts. Recently, he has worked on initiatives aimed at bridging the civil-military divide, including co-chairing the Veterans Summit at Yale University. He is a Term Member at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Deputy Director, Program on Extremism, George Washington University
Seamus Hughes is the Deputy Director of the Program on Extremism at George Washington University. He is an expert on terrorism, homegrown violent extremism, and countering violent extremism (CVE). Hughes has authored numerous reports for the Program including ‘ISIS in America: From Retweets to Raqqa’ and ‘The Travelers: American Jihadists in Syria and Iraq.’ He regularly provides commentary to media outlets, including the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, CNN, MSNBC, FoxNews, BBC, PBS, and CBS’ 60 Minutes. He has testified before the U.S. Congress on multiple occasions.
Hughes previously worked at the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), serving as a lead staffer on U.S. government efforts to implement a national CVE strategy. He regularly led engagements with Muslim American communities across the country, provided counsel to civic leaders after high-profile terror-related incidents, and met with families of individuals who joined terrorist organizations. Hughes created a groundbreaking intervention program to help steer individuals away from violence through non-law enforcement means, and worked closely with the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, Fusion Centers, and U.S. Attorney Offices.
Prior to NCTC, Hughes served as the Senior Counterterrorism Advisor for the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. He organized over a dozen congressional hearings on the threat of homegrown violent extremism, and led fact-finding delegations to the various European and Middle Eastern countries. He authored two reports for the Senate: “A Ticking Time Bomb: Counterterrorism Lessons from the U.S. Government’s Failure to Prevent the Fort Hood Attack” and “Zachary Chesser: A Case Study in Online Islamist Radicalization and Its Meaning for the Threat of Homegrown Terrorism.”
Hughes has authored numerous legislative bills, including sections of the 9/11 Commission Recommendations Act and the Special Agent Samuel Hicks Families of Fallen Heroes Act. He is a graduate of the University of Maryland, and a recipient of the National Security Council Outstanding Service Award and two NCTC Director’s Awards for outstanding service. He teaches classes at George Washington University and Georgetown University.
Harold Brown Chair; Director, Transnational Threats Project; and Senior Adviser, International Security Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies
Seth G. Jones holds the Harold Brown Chair, is director of the Transnational Threats Project, and is a senior adviser to the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He teaches at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and the Center for Homeland Defense and Security (CHDS) at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School.
Prior to joining CSIS, Dr. Jones was the director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the RAND Corporation. He also served as representative for the commander, U.S. Special Operations Command, to the assistant secretary of defense for special operations. Before that, he was a plans officer and adviser to the commanding general, U.S. Special Operations Forces, in Afghanistan (Combined Forces Special Operations Component Command–Afghanistan). In 2014, Dr. Jones served on a congressionally mandated panel that reviewed the FBI’s implementation of counterterrorism recommendations contained in the 9/11 Commission Report.
Dr. Jones specializes in counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, unconventional warfare, and covert action, including a focus on al Qaeda and ISIS. He is the author of A Covert Action: Reagan, the CIA, and the Cold War Struggle in Poland (W.W. Norton, 2018), Waging Insurgent Warfare (Oxford University Press, 2016), Hunting in the Shadows: The Pursuit of al Qa'ida after 9/11 (W.W. Norton, 2012), and In the Graveyard of Empires: America’s War in Afghanistan (W.W. Norton, 2009). Dr. Jones has published articles in a range of journals, such as Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and International Security, as well as newspapers and magazines like the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. Dr. Jones is a graduate of Bowdoin College and received his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.
Margaret Thatcher Fellow, Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, The Heritage Foundation
Robin Simcox is the Margaret Thatcher Fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, where he specializes in counter-terrorism and national security policy.
Simcox has testified before Congress on multiple occasions on issues related to ISIS, al-Qaeda and associated movements. He has also provided oral evidence to a committee of Parliament established to examine British intelligence policy.
Simcox’s commentary has been published in newspapers such as The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The (London) Telegraph, and The Guardian. It also has appeared in magazines and journals such as Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, West Point’s CTC Sentinel, and The Weekly Standard. He regularly appears on a variety of broadcast and cable news outlets, including Fox News Channel, MSNBC, CNN, CBS, BBC, and Sky News.
Prior to arriving at Heritage in January 2016, Simcox was a research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, a foreign policy think tank in London. While there, he authored several important works on the terrorist group al-Qaeda, including "Al-Qaeda in the United States," a 728-page monograph profiling every known court conviction in America linked to al-Qaeda.
In joining Heritage’s Thatcher Center for Freedom and assuming the fellowship that bears the name of the former British prime minister, he became part of the leading policy center in Washington dedicated to strengthening the Anglo-American “special relationship” as well as U.S. and British leadership of the broader transatlantic alliance. Established in 2005, the Thatcher Center is the only public policy center in the world dedicated to advancing the vision and ideals of Lady Thatcher, who died in 2013.
Robin received a master of science degree in U.S. foreign policy from the Institute for the Study of the Americas, University of London, and a bachelor of arts degree in international history from the University of Leeds. He studied for a year at the University of Newcastle, Australia.
Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Policy, United States Department of Justice
GianCarlo Canaparo serves as the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy at the Department of Justice. He oversees the Office's regulatory work, assists the White House in the process of selecting nominees for federal judgeships and advises Department leadership on policy and legal matters.
Before joining the Department, Canaparo was a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies where he researched constitutional law, administrative law, and civil rights.
Canaparo’s scholarship has appeared in various law reviews and periodicals. His research has been cited by Justice Neil Gorsuch and featured in the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post.
Canaparo co-hosted The Heritage Foundation’s SCOTUS 101 podcast, which followed the Supreme Court’s arguments and opinions and featured interviews with judges, advocates, and scholars.
After graduating Georgetown law, Canaparo spent three years at the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and two years as a federal law clerk. He earned his bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of California at Davis.
Canaparo is a classical pianist.
Fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center
Rachel N. Morrison is an attorney and Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where she directs EPPC’s Administrative State Accountability Project. Her legal and policy work focuses on religious liberty, health care rights of conscience, the right to life, nondiscrimination, and civil rights.
Before joining EPPC, Ms. Morrison served as an Attorney Advisor and Special Assistant to General Counsel Sharon Fast Gustafson at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), where she focused on religious discrimination issues and was a member of the General Counsel’s Religious Discrimination Work Group. Before that, she served as Litigation Counsel for Americans United for Life and as a Constitutional Law Fellow at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, defending the right to life and religious freedom for all. She also clerked on the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
Ms. Morrison’s legal analysis has been published in the Seton Hall Law Review, the Pepperdine Law Review, and the Ave Maria Law Review, as well as various other print media outlets.
Ms. Morrison earned her J.D., magna cum laude, from the Pepperdine University School of Law, where she was elected to the Order of the Coif and served as an editor for the Pepperdine Law Review and the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. She received her B.A. in Mathematics and Speech Communication, summa cum laude, from Whitworth University (Spokane, WA). She is a member of the District of Columbia and the Washington State bars.
Ms. Morrison lives with her husband and daughter in Virginia.
Director - Office of Litigation, NRA-ILA
Joseph Greenlee is the Director of the Office of Litigation Counsel at the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action. He is also a Research Associate at the Independence Institute and a Policy Advisor for Legal Affairs at the Heartland Institute.
Greenlee has worked on more than 100 constitutional law cases (representing a party or amicus curiae) and has filed more than 30 briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court.
Greenlee has published 15 scholarly articles on firearms law. He has been cited in over 120 cases, including five United States Supreme Court cases, as well as decisions by five federal circuit courts of appeals, over thirty district courts, the highest courts of six states and Puerto Rico, and three state appellate courts.
Greenlee has also authored dozens of short articles on the right to keep and bear arms, which have appeared in The Hill, Washington Post, Washington Times, and SCOTUSblog, among others.
Director, GW Regulatory Studies Center & Distinguished Professor of Practice, Trachtenberg School of Public Policy & Public Administration, The George Washington University
Susan Dudley is the Founder and Director of the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center, established in 2009 to raise awareness of regulations’ effects and improve regulatory policy through research, education, and outreach. She is also a distinguished professor of practice in the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration. She is past-president of the Society for Benefit Cost Analysis, a senior fellow of the Administrative Conference of the United States, and on the Regulatory Transparency Project Regulatory Practice Working Group. Her book, Regulation: A Primer, with Jerry Brito, is available on Amazon.com.
From April 2007 through January 2009, Professor Dudley served as the Presidentially-appointed Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the U.S. Office of Management and Budget and was responsible for the review of draft executive branch regulations under Executive Order 12866, the collection of federal-government-wide information under the Paperwork Reduction Act, the development and implementation of government-wide policies in the areas of information policy, privacy, and statistical policy, and international regulatory cooperation efforts.
Prior to OIRA, she directed the Regulatory Studies Program at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, and taught courses on regulation at the George Mason University School of Law. Earlier in her career, Professor Dudley served as an economist at OIRA, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. She was also a consultant to government and private clients at Economists Incorporated. She holds a Master of Science degree from the Sloan School of Management at MIT and a Bachelor of Science degree (summa cum laude) in Resource Economics from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Economics Emeritus, Emory University
Paul H. Rubin is the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Economics Emeritus in the Economics Department of Emory University and a former Professor of Law and Economics at the School of Law. He served as editor-in-chief of Managerial and Decision Economics. In addition, he is associated with the Mont Peleron Society, the Independent Institute, and the American Enterprise Institute, and a Fellow of the Public Choice Society and former President of the Southern Economics Association. Professor Rubin was Senior Economist at the Council of Economic Advisers under President Reagan, Chief Economist at the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, Director of Advertising Economics at the Federal Trade Commission, and Vice-President of Glassman-Oliver Economic Consultants, Inc., a litigation consulting firm in Washington. He has taught economics at the University of Georgia, City University of New York, VPI, and law and economics at George Washington University Law School. Professor Rubin has written or edited several books, and has published over one hundred articles and chapters on economics, law, and regulation.
Much of Professor Rubin's writing is in law and economics, with a focus on tort, crime and contract issues. His areas of research interest include law and economics, industrial organization, transaction cost economics, government and business, public choice, regulation and price theory, and evolution and economics. His work has been cited in the professional literature over 11,100 times. He has consulted widely on litigation related matters, and has addressed numerous business, professional, policy and academic audiences. He has testified three times before Congress, and has served as an advisor on tort issues to the Congressional Budget Office.
Professor Rubin is the author of the well known paper "Why Is the Common Law efficient?" Journal of Legal Studies, 1977, which has been reprinted eight times, in English, Spanish and French.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Judge O’Scannlain was appointed United States Circuit Judge for the Ninth Circuit by President Reagan on September 26, 1986. He received a J.D. degree in 1963 from Harvard Law School and a B.A. in 1957 from St. John’s University. He also earned the LL.M. (Judicial Process) degree at University of Virginia Law School in 1992. He was awarded the LL.D. (honoris causa) degree by the University of Notre Dame in 2002, the LL.D. (honoris causa) degree by Lewis & Clark College in 2003 and the LL.D. (honoris causa) degree by the University of Portland in 2011.
As a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Judge O’Scannlain has participated in over 6,000 federal cases and has written hundreds of published opinions on a broad range of subjects including constitutional law, international law, securities law, administrative law, and criminal law. He hears appeals in San Francisco (court headquarters), as well as in Los Angeles (Pasadena), Portland, Seattle, Anchorage and Honolulu. The late Chief Justice Rehnquist appointed Judge O'Scannlain to the Federal Judicial Center's Advisory Committee on Appellate Judge Education. In 2009, Chief Justice Roberts appointed Judge O’Scannlain to the International Judicial Relations Committee of the U.S. Judicial Conference and subsequently appointed him Chairman in 2010.
President George W. Bush appointed Judge O’Scannlain to the Board of Trustees of the James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation in 2004. Pope Benedict XVI conferred the Order of Saint Gregory the Great on Judge and Mrs. O’Scannlain in 2007.
Judge O’Scannlain’s professional interests also include judicial administration and reform, and continuing legal education. Judge O’Scannlain is former Chair of the Judicial Division of the American Bar Association and has previously chaired the ABA’s Appellate Judges Conference, its Committee on Appellate Practice, and its 9th Appellate Practice Institute. He has testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on several occasions, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property, and the Commission on Structural Alternatives for the Federal Courts of Appeals on the subject of court reorganization. In addition to serving as a faculty member at numerous federal appellate practice seminars for judges and attorneys, including New York University Law School’s Institute for Judicial Administration, Judge O’Scannlain is an Adjunct Professor at Lewis & Clark Law School where he teaches a seminar on the Supreme Court. He has served as a Moot Court Judge at distinguished law schools across the United States including Harvard, Yale Stanford, Boalt Hall (Berkeley Law), Virginia, Cornell, Notre Dame, Fordham, Alabama, University of Southern California, King Hall (U.C. Davis) and Loyola Marymount University and in China at Xiamen and Renmin Universities.
Between graduation from Harvard and investiture as a federal judge, Judge O’Scannlain was primarily engaged in private law practice. Between 1969 and 1974, he was consecutively the Deputy Attorney General of Oregon, the Public Utility Commissioner of Oregon, and Director of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. He retired from the U.S. Army Reserve in 1978 as a Major after 23 years Reserve and National Guard service, including four years as an enlisted man.
A first generation Irish-American son of immigrant parents from Sligo and Derry, Judge O’Scannlain is married to the former Maura Nolan and has eight children: Sean, Jane, Brendan, Kevin, Megan, Christopher, Anne, and Kate, and nineteen grandchildren. His chambers are in the Pioneer Courthouse in Portland, Oregon.
Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Helen Alvaré is a Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University, where she teaches Family Law, Law and Religion, and Property Law. She publishes on matters concerning marriage, parenting, non-marital households, and the First Amendment religion clauses. She is faculty advisor to the law school’s Civil Rights Law Journal, and the Latino/a Law Student Association, a Member of the Holy See’s Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life (Vatican City), a board member of Catholic Relief Services, a member of the Executive Committee of the AALS’ Section on Law and Religion, and an ABC news consultant. She cooperates with the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations as a speaker and a delegate to various United Nations conferences concerning women and the family.
In addition to her books, and her publications in law reviews and other academic journals, Professor Alvaré publishes regularly in news outlets including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Huffington Post, and CNN.com. She also speaks at academic and professional conferences in the United States, Europe, Latin America and Australia.
Prior to joining the faculty of Scalia Law, Professor Alvaré taught at the Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America; represented the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops before legislative bodies, academic audiences and the media; and was a litigation attorney for the Philadelphia law firm of Stradley, Ronon, Stevens & Young.
Professor Alvaré received her law degree from Cornell University School of Law and her master’s degree in Systematic Theology from the Catholic University of America.
University Professor of Law and Executive Director, Liberty & Law Center, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
David Bernstein holds a University Professorship chair at the Antonin Scalia Law School, where he has been teaching since 1995. He has also been a visiting professor at the University of Michigan, Georgetown University, William & Mary, Brooklyn Law School, the University of Turin, and Hebrew University. Professor Bernstein teaches Constitutional Law, Evidence, and Products Liability.
A prolific author, Professor Bernstein often challenges the conventional wisdom with prodigious research and sharp, original analysis. He is the author of five books, and coauthor of two more. Professor Bernstein’s book Rehabilitating Lochner was praised across the political spectrum as “intellectual history in its highest form,” a “fresh perspective and a cogent analysis,” “delightful and informative,” “sharp and iconoclastic,” and “a terrific work of historical revisionism.” Columnist George Will praised Bernstein’s most recent book, Classified, The Untold Story of Racial Classification in America, as “perhaps the most consequential American book of 2022.”
Professor Bernstein has also written dozens of articles and essays published in major law reviews, including the California Law Review, Columbia Law Review, Michigan Law Review, and Yale Law Journal. An article he coauthored, Defending Daubert: It’s Time to Amend Federal Rule of Evidence 702, directly inspired a pending amendment to Rule 702.
Professor Bernstein blogs at the Instapundit.com, the Times of Israel, and the Volokh Conspiracy. He is a graduate of the Yale Law School, where he was senior editor of the Yale Law Journal and a John M. Olin Fellow in Law, Economics, and Public Policy.
McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence; Director, James Madison Program, Princeton University
Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. He has several times been a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School. He has served as Chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the President’s Council on Bioethics. He has also served as the U.S. member of UNESCO’s World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology. He was a Judicial Fellow at the Supreme Court of the United States, where he received the Justice Tom C. Clark Award. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Swarthmore, he holds the degrees of J.D. and M.T.S. from Harvard University and the degrees of D.Phil., B.C.L., D.C.L., and D.Litt. from Oxford University, in addition to twenty-one honorary doctorates. He is a recipient of the U.S. Presidential Citizens Medal, the Honorific Medal for the Defense of Human Rights of the Republic of Poland, the Canterbury Medal of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the Bradley Prize, the Irving Kristol Award of the American Enterprise Institute, and Princeton University’s President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching. His books include Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality and In Defense of Natural Law (both published by Oxford University Press), as well as The Clash of Orthodoxies and Conscience and Its Enemies (both published by ISI Books).
Senior Research Scholar in Law, Yale Law School
Linda Greenhouse is Senior Research Scholar in Law at Yale Law School. She covered the Supreme Court for The New York Times between 1978 and 2008 and writes a biweekly op-ed column on law as a contributing columnist. Ms. Greenhouse received several major journalism awards during her 40-year career at the Times, including the Pulitzer Prize (1998) and the Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism from Harvard University’s Kennedy School (2004). In 2002, the American Political Science Association gave her its Carey McWilliams Award for “a major journalistic contribution to our understanding of politics.” Her books include a biography of Justice Harry A. Blackmun, Becoming Justice Blackmun; Before Roe v. Wade: Voices That Shaped the Abortion Debate Before the Supreme Court's Ruling (with Reva B. Siegel); The U.S. Supreme Court, A Very Short Introduction, published by Oxford University Press in 2012; and The Burger Court and the Rise of the Judicial Right, with Michael J. Graetz, published in 2016. Her latest book is Just a Journalist: Reflections on the Press, Life, and the Spaces Between, published by Harvard University Press in 2017. In her extracurricular life, Ms. Greenhouse is president of the American Philosophical Society, the country's oldest learned society, which in 2005 awarded her its Henry Allen Moe Prize for writing in jurisprudence and the humanities. She also serves on the council of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the national Senate of Phi Beta Kappa, and is one of two non-lawyer honorary members elected to the American Law Institute, which in 2002 awarded her its Henry J. Friendly Medal. She has been awarded thirteen honorary degrees. She is a 1968 graduate of Radcliffe College (Harvard) and earned a Master of Studies in Law degree from Yale Law School (1978), which she attended on a Ford Foundation fellowship. She is married to Eugene R. Fidell, Florence Rogatz Lecturer in Law at Yale. Their daughter, Hannah, is a filmmaker in Los Angeles.
Co-Dean and Professor of Law, Rutgers Law School in Camden
Kimberly Mutcherson is Co-Dean and Professor of Law at Rutgers Law School in Camden. Her scholarly work is at the intersection of family law, health law, and bioethics. She writes on issues related to reproductive justice, with a focus on assisted reproduction, abortion, and maternal-fetal decision-making.
Professor Mutcherson teaches Family Law, Torts, South African Constitutional Law, and Bioethics, Babies, & Babymaking. She has served as a Senior Fellow/Sabbatical Visitor at the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia Law School, a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, and as a fellow at the Institute for Research on Women at Rutgers University. She won a Center for Reproductive Rights Innovation in Scholarship Award in 2013 and a Chancellor’s Teaching Excellence Award in 2011.
She received her B.A. in history from the University of Pennsylvania and her J.D. from Columbia Law School where she was a Stone Scholar. At Columbia, she received the Samuel I. Rosenman Prize for excellence in public law courses and outstanding qualities of citizenship and leadership in the law school. She also received the Kirkland and Ellis Fellowship for post-graduate public interest work. Prior to joining the faculty at Rutgers School of Law in 2002, Professor Mutcherson was an Acting Assistant Professor of Lawyering at the New York University School of Law, a consulting attorney at the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy (now the Center for Reproductive Rights), and a Staff Attorney at the HIV Law Project.
Professor and Director, Prolife Center, University of St. Thomas School of Law
Teresa Collett, J.D., is professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law, where she serves as director of the school's Prolife Center. Collett received her doctorate at the University of Oklahoma College of Law. As a well-known advocate for the protection of human life and the family, Collett specializes in the subjects of marriage, religion and bioethics in her research.
Collett has published numerous legal articles and is the co-author of a law casebook on professional responsibility and co-editor of a collection of essays exploring “catholic” and “Catholic” perspectives on American law. She is an elected member of the American Law Institute, and has testified before committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, as well as before legislative committees in several states.
In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Collett to a five-year term on the Pontifical Council for the Family. Her appointment was renewed by His Holiness Pope Francis until 2016 when the responsibilities of the Council were assumed by the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life. In 2013, she served as a delegate to the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) for the Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations.
She represented Congressman Ron Paul and various medical groups in the defense of the U.S. federal ban of partial-birth abortion, and the governors of Minnesota and North Dakota defending the N.H. requirement of state parental involvement prior to performance of an abortion on a minor before the U.S. Supreme Court. Collett is often asked to represent the interests of government officials before federal appellate courts. She has served as special attorney general for the states of Oklahoma and Kansas, as well as assisting other state attorneys general in defending laws protecting human life and marriage. Prior to joining St. Thomas in 2003, Collett taught at the South Texas College of Law, where she established the nation's first annual symposium on legal ethics.
Deputy Policy Director, U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation
Dan Ball is a Deputy Policy Director with the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, where he handles the Communications, Technology, Innovation, and Internet portfolio. He has previously practiced telecommunications law at law firms and at the FCC.
Senior Policy Advisor and Senior Technology Counsel, Senator Mark Warner
Rafi Martina currently serves as Senior Policy Advisor for Senator Mark Warner (D-Virginia). In this capacity, he acts as the senator’s principal advisor on cybersecurity, technology, telecommunications, competition, and consumer protection issues. Mr. Martina serves as Senator Warner’s principal cybersecurity and technology advisor across his committee assignments, including the Senate Banking Committee and Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, along with the Senator's work as Co-Chair of the Senate Cybersecurity Caucus.
He has spearheaded the Senator’s work on addressing social media disinformation, including by authoring the Honest Ads Act, authored numerous pieces of legislation the Senator has led on information security, including the IoT Cybersecurity Improvement Act of 2017, and drafted the Senator’s influential white paper developing policy proposals for the regulation of social media and technology firms.
Prior to joining Senator Warner’s staff, Mr. Martina served as regulatory counsel for Sprint Corp. from 2011-2015, where he represented Sprint in major rulemaking proceedings, mergers and acquisitions, and cases before the Federal Communications Commission, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the Department of Justice, and federal courts.
Before joining Sprint, Mr. Martina was the recipient of a post-graduate fellowship from the University of Virginia School of Law Foundation. Under the auspices of his fellowship, he acted as a legal fellow and staff attorney for FCC Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker from 2010-2011.
Mr. Martina graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law. He received his Bachelors of Arts (with high honors) in Political Science from the University of Michigan and was a visiting scholar at Oxford University (Worcester College).
VP, Legal Policy and Copyright Counsel, Copyright Alliance
Terry Hart joined the Copyright Alliance in 2013. He has been quoted by publications such as Politico, The Hollywood Reporter, and BNA’s Patent, Trademark, and Copyright Daily. His articles have appeared in publications including the George Mason Law Review, SCOTUSBlog, and IP Watchdog. He speaks regularly and has appeared at events such as the Copyright Society Mid-Winter Meeting, the Fordham IP Law & Policy Conference, the CPIP Fall Conference, the IPO Annual Meeting, and the WIPO/USPTO Summer School on IP.
Since 2010, Terry has blogged at Copyhype on copyright law, history, and policy. The blog was named one of the top 100 legal blogs by the American Bar Association in 2011 and has been cited in law review articles, legal filings, and books.
In addition, he is an adjunct professor at George Mason University School of Law, where he teaches copyright law.
Counsel, Hunton Andrews Kurth
The former Principal Deputy Solicitor General in Virginia’s Office of the Attorney General, Matt is a seasoned appellate and trial court attorney. As counsel, Matt focuses on appellate litigation as well as helping clients frame complex legal issues before trial courts and administrative agencies.
Before joining Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP, Matt served for nearly four years in the Solicitor General’s division of the Office of the Attorney General of Virginia. He represented the Commonwealth, its agencies and its officials in significant and sensitive cases pending before the US Supreme Court, the US Courts of Appeals, the Supreme Court of Virginia and federal and state trial courts. Before the US Supreme Court, Matt briefed, argued and won a 5-4 victory in Currier v. Virginia, 138 S. Ct. 2144 (2018). That case involved a “complicated” constitutional question about the double jeopardy clause, which resulted in one commentator noting “the exceptionally high intellectual plane of the Supreme Court’s discourse” during the argument (SCOTUSBlog 2018). Matt was also the principal attorney defending the sentence imposed on Lee Boyd Malvo, one of the “D.C. Snipers,” including drafting the successful petition for writ of certiorari, granted by the US Supreme Court in 2019. Recently, Matt argued before the full en banc US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Manning v. Caldwell, a case challenging the constitutionality of Virginia’s habitual drunkard laws, and successfully represented the Virginia State Bar before the Supreme Court of Virginia in Morrissey v. Virginia State Bar.
Before joining the Attorney General’s office, Matt frequently represented clients before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in proceedings arising under the Federal Power Act and the Natural Gas Act. Immediately after law school, Matt served as a law clerk for Judge E. Grady Jolly on the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Matt also co-teaches a course on the Constitution and State Attorneys General at the University of Richmond School of Law.
Senior Vice President, Spectrum Strategy & Technology Policy, Qualcomm
Dean Brenner is Senior Vice President, Government Affairs for Qualcomm Incorporated. He directs Qualcomm’s global spectrum acquisitions and strategy and is responsible for global technology policy. He represents Qualcomm before the Federal Communications Commission and other agencies of the United States and Canadian governments responsible for spectrum and telecommunications policy and interacts with spectrum regulators around the world. He also leads Qualcomm’s policy initiatives relating to mobile healthcare.
Mr. Brenner led Qualcomm’s bidding team in recent spectrum auctions in India (the 2.3 GHz band), the United States (the 700 MHz band), and the United Kingdom (the L Band). In addition, he was responsible for obtaining the regulatory approvals for Qualcomm’s sale of 700 MHz spectrum to AT&T in 2011. In 2006, he obtained the regulatory approvals to launch FLO TV, a mobile TV service. He has spoken at conferences on spectrum policy in the United States, Canada, South Korea, Belgium, Great Britain, and elsewhere around the world. He joined Qualcomm in November 2003.
Mr. Brenner received his A.B. degree, magna cum laude with distinction in public policy studies, from Duke in 1982. He won a prize for the best paper on communications policy, and he was a recipient for four years of a CBS Scholarship. He received his J.D., cum laude, from Georgetown University in 1985. He is admitted to the Bars of the District of Columbia, Maryland, and the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Courts of Appeal for the D.C., Third, and Eleventh Circuits, and the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Mr. Brenner is a member of the Federal Advisory Board for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, & Timing, which advises the Executive Branch on policy matters impacting the Global Positioning System. He is also a member of the Board of Governors of 4G Americas, the Board for Jewish Life at Duke University, and the Board of Trustees of the Field School. He lives in Washington, DC with his wife Robin Shaffert and their two sons, Michael and Steven.
Director (Group Manager), Technology and Innovation Policy, Toyota North America
Hilary Cain is Director of Technology and Innovation Policy for Toyota. In this position, she handles policy issues relating to connected and automated vehicle technology, including artificial intelligence, data privacy, cybersecurity, and telecommunications.
Prior to joining Toyota, Cain was on the staff of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. She served as Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Technology and Innovation with jurisdiction over matters relating to competitiveness, technology, standards, and innovation. Previously, as a Counsel to the Committee, she handled parliamentary, procedural, and jurisdictional matters and participated in the development and implementation of legislative strategy. Before joining the Committee staff, Cain served as Legislative Director and Ways and Means Counsel for individual Members of Congress.
She holds a J.D. and a M.A. in Public Affairs from the University of Texas, and a B.A. in Political Science with honors from the University of Washington.
Vice President & Associate General Counsel, NCTA- The Internet & Television Association
Danielle J. Piñeres is a Vice President & Associate General Counsel at NCTA – The Internet & Television Association, where she focuses on wireless spectrum policy issues. Prior to her employment at NCTA, Ms. Piñeres worked as an associate with the law firm of Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis LLP in Washington, D.C., where she practiced in the areas of telecommunications (including spectrum regulation), international trade and foreign investment, and appellate litigation. Before joining HWG, Ms. Piñeres clerked for the Honorable Emily C. Hewitt at the United States Court of Federal Claims. Ms. Piñeres received her J.D. magna cum laude from the Georgetown University Law Center.
Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
Christopher J. Walker is a Professor of Law at the University of Michigan. Prior to joining Michigan law faculty in 2022, he spent a decade teaching at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. He previously clerked for Justice Anthony Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court, worked on the Civil Appellate Staff at the U.S. Department of Justice, and served on the Senate Judiciary Committee staff for the Gorsuch Supreme Court confirmation. Professor Walker’s research focuses on administrative law, regulation, and law and policy at the agency level. Outside the law school, he chaired the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice in 2020-21 and served as one of forty Public Members of the Administrative Conference of the United States from 2016-2022, and he continues to serve in both organizations in various capacities. He also works of counsel at the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center. In 2022, he received the Federalist Society’s Joseph Story Award.
ISIS Today: Prisoners, Escapees, Returnees, and Resurgent Fighters
Christopher K. Harnisch, Seamus Hughes, Seth Jones, Robin Simcox
What is the current status of ISIS worldwide? Some European countries have cancelled ISIS-travelers’ citizenship...
Kahler v. Kansas & Ramos v. Louisiana Post-Argument SCOTUScast
GianCarlo Canaparo
featuring GianCarlo Canaparo
On October 7, 2019, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Kahler v. Kansas and Ramos...
The Supreme Court Takes Up Abortion: What You Need to Know About June Medical Services v. Gee
Rachel N. Morrison
Federalist Society Review, Volume 20
Note from the Editor: The Federalist Society takes no positions on particular legal and public...
Commonwealth v. Hicks, 208 A.3d 916 (Pa. 2019)
Joseph Greenlee
State Court Docket Watch
In the early morning hours of June 28, 2014, Michael Hicks was observed carrying a...
Deep Dive Episode 77 – Book Review: The Capitalism Paradox: How Cooperation Enables Free Market Competition
Susan E. Dudley, Paul H. Rubin
Regulatory Transparency Project's Fourth Branch Podcast
In this episode, Paul Rubin, the world’s leading expert on cooperative capitalism, discusses his new...
The Future of the Federal Judiciary
Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain
Federalist Society Review, Volume 20
Note from the Editor: The Federalist Society takes no positions on particular legal and public...
Roe v. Wade: A Legal History | Part Two: The Right to Privacy
Helen Alvaré, David Bernstein, Robert P. George, Linda Greenhouse, Kimberly Mutcherson, Teresa Stanton Collett
Documentary short from Coronation Media and FedSoc Films
Though it is not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, the concept of a fundamental right...
Supply Chain Issues: Huawei and ZTE
Dan Ball, Rafi Martina
Huawei and ZTE, two large Chinese telecommunications companies, have received considerable scrutiny from the Trump...
Deep Dive Episode 76 – State-Sponsored Piracy? The Allen v. Cooper Case
Michael Bynum, Terry Hart, Matthew McGuire
Regulatory Transparency Project's Fourth Branch Podcast
What happens when a state agency uses without authorization copyrighted videos and pictures of Blackbeard’s...
Deep Dive Episode 75 – Spectrum Wars
Dean Brenner, Hilary Cain, Danielle Piñeres, Christopher J. Walker
Regulatory Transparency Project's Fourth Branch Podcast
With the advent of mobile devices, ubiquitous home laptop, tablet and iPad computers, content streaming...