This fall Iowa Law is proud to welcome four new faculty to the Boyd Law Building.
“The Faculty Appointment Committee worked tirelessly last year to bring us an outstanding group of new faculty this fall. Professor Roesler will strengthen and deepen our offerings in environmental law. Professor Sakoda brings an innovative economic framework to criminal justice. Professor Mathis will research and teach about educational law and policy. Professor Lanham’s graduate work in English builds on our reputation as the Writing Law School at the Writing University. With significant graduate work in a variety of areas in addition to law, each will make a difference at Iowa Law, enriching students and fellow faculty alike,” said Dean Kevin Washburn.
Professor Shannon Roesler joins Iowa Law full-time and with tenure from Oklahoma City University School of Law and Professor Ryan Sakoda joins full-time and tenure-track from a Bigelow Fellowship at the University of Chicago Law School. Professor Andrew Lanham is our Beach Interdisciplinary Fellow with the ranks of visiting assistant professor and has a joint appointment with the Department of English. Professor Chris Mathis is also a visiting assistant professor and joins us as the second hire through the Faculty Fellow program, which was reinstated in 2020.
Collectively, their work focuses on some of today’s most pressing issues including environmental law, criminal justice, education policy, and social change. Read more about their work and the strengths they bring to Iowa Law.
Shannon Roesler, Professor of Law
Shannon Roesler is an award-winning teacher and established environmental scholar. She joins us from Oklahoma City University School of Law where she was the Robert S. Kerr, Jr. Professor of Natural Resources and Environmental Law. Professor Roesler’s scholarship focuses on issues of environmental justice, environmental governance, climate change litigation, and land use. She currently serves on the board of the Environmental Law Collaborative.
Professor Roesler received her BA and JD from the University of Kansas, her MA in English Literature from the University of Chicago, her MA in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin, and her LLM from Georgetown University Law Center. She will be teaching courses in Environmental Law, Climate Change Law & Policy, Torts, and Land Use.
Ryan Sakoda, Associate Professor of Law
Ryan Sakoda joins us from the University of Chicago Law School where he was a Harry A. Bigelow Teaching Fellow and Lecturer in Law. He has practiced as a Trial Attorney and Public Interest Fellow with the Committee for Public Counsel Services in Boston. Professor Sakoda’s research focus is on the empirical analysis of crime and criminal justice policy. His recent scholarship focuses on the use of solitary confinement and the effects of post-release supervision and probation.
Sakoda received a PhD in economics from Harvard University and a JD from Yale Law School. He received an MSc from the London School of Economics as a Fulbright scholar and was a Peace Corps volunteer in Ukraine. He completed his undergraduate work at the University of California, Berkeley. He will be teaching Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, and Law and Economics.
Chris Mathis, Visiting Assistant Professor of Law
Christopher L. Mathis joins us from a fellowship with the American Bar Foundation in Chicago as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law this year. He is the second member of our faculty to join us through the Faculty Fellows program.
He earned his BS from Oakwood University, his JD from South Carolina School of Law, and his PhD from University of Virginia Curry School of Education with an emphasis in higher education. His legal research hinges on the intersection of the law and higher educational policy, with a focus on constitutional issues, access, diversity, and equity in higher education and the use of social sciences in legal research.
Andrew Lanham, Beach Interdisciplinary Fellow
Andrew Lanham joins Iowa Law as the Robert and Jane Beach Interdisciplinary Fellow, which is made possible by the generous gift of an alum who has long supported research by junior faculty. Lanham earned his JD from Michigan and his MA in English and American Studies from Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and Yale. He recently completed a clerkship with a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Ciruit and is finishing his PhD in English at Yale.
Professor Lanham blends legal history, cultural history, and political theory to examine the dynamics of social movements, protest politics, and legal and social change. His current project is an archival history of antiwar protest in the twentieth-century United States, tracking the development and impact of a “long antiwar movement” as well as its responses to the evolving U.S. national security state and its frequent collaborations with other social movements, including the civil rights movement and the feminist movement.