Prof. Kristine Kalanges

Kristine Kalanges is Associate Professor of Law and Concurrent Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame, where her teaching and research interests include: democracy, development and human rights; international and comparative law; international political economy; legal and political philosophy; and religious freedom. Her first book, Religious Liberty in Western and Islamic Law: Toward a World Legal Tradition (Oxford University Press, 2012), explored the comparative effects of religious beliefs and practices on constitutions and international human rights. Her current research, Investing in Human Dignity: A Natural Law Approach to International Political Economy, focuses on ethical issues in global political economic relations (including, for example, international investment and development). 

Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, Professor Kalanges joined the Notre Dame faculty in 2012, where she is on the faculty advisory committee for the Center for Civil and Human Rights and the Center for Ethics and Culture, as well as a faculty fellow in the Kellogg Institute for International Studies and the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. Previously, she was an assistant professor of Justice, Law & Society in the School of Public Affairs at American University. She also practiced corporate law in the New York office of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton and served in Washington, D.C. as a law clerk for the U.S. Department of Justice. 

In 2008, Professor Kalanges received a J.D. from Yale Law School, where she was a John M. Olin Fellow in Law, Economics and Public Policy, and a Ph.D. from Georgetown University, where she was a Graduate Fellow in International Relations. She also holds a M.A. in Government from Georgetown University and a B.A. from the University of Puget Sound, where she majored in International Political Economy. Prior to undertaking graduate studies, she spent two years in Seattle’s private sector, providing research, marketing, and communications services for technology and consulting firms.