Teaching Staff Bios
Brian Palmiter (Head Teaching Fellow)
Brian Palmiter is a postdoctoral fellow at the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for ethics and an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is also the coach of the Harvard Ethics Bowl team. (Reach out to learn more!) His research focuses on topics at the intersection of ethics, democratic theory, and the law.
Soren Dudley (Head Teaching Fellow)
Soren Dudley is a PhD student in the Department of Government, writing a dissertation in Political Theory. She has research interests in Marxist political thought, neoliberalism and the post-neoliberal transition, and the role of spectacle and aesthetics in politics.
Office Hours: Mondays and Wednesdays, 5:30 - 6:30 pm via zoom and by appointment. Students in D002 and D031 can sign up via our sections' signup sheet.
Roshni Chakraborty (Head Teaching Fellow)
Roshni Chakraborty is a third-year at Harvard Law School focusing on public international law and international human rights law. She graduated from Harvard College with a degree in Social Studies and Global Health. She worked in the humanitarian sector, focusing on gender-based violence and child protection in the context of forced migration.
Office Hours: Thursday 5-7PM. By appointment (please email to let me know you're coming).
Haidun Liu
Haidun Liu is a PhD student in political theory in the Harvard Department of Government. His research interests include the history of modern political thought, utopianism, the role theological ideas play in political discourse, and Chinese political thought. His dissertation is on the history of supererogation, the idea of going above and beyond one’s duties.
Office Hours: Available on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Please sign up here: https://calendly.com/haidunliu-g/office Links to an external site.
Petal Niles
Petal Niles is a third-year Harvard Law student. She studied politics at Scripps College with an emphasis on post-colonial, feminist, and critical theory. Prior to and during law school, she has worked with legal aid organizations to provide housing, immigration, and criminal defense services. She will work as a public defender after graduation.
Office Hours: Thursdays 1:30-3:30pm at the Science Center Building. Please sign up here https://calendly.com/eniles-jd25/office-hours Links to an external site.
Email: eniles@jd25.law.harvard.edu
Toibat Ayankunbi
Toibat Ayankunbi is a second-year student at Harvard Law School. She received a B.A. in Political Science with minors in Economics and American Studies from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. Her academic interests are in copyright, trademark law, and constitutional law.
Office hours: Available by appointment only on Wednesday mornings at the Harvard Law School Library. Students can sign up using this calendly link: https://calendly.com/tayankunbi-jd26/15min Links to an external site.
Julian Zajkowski
Julian Zajkowski is a third-year student at Harvard Law School. He has experience at the U.S. Department of Justice, has helped litigate First Amendment issues at the federal appellate level, and plans to practice at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP in New York. His academic interests include First Amendment law, law and religion, and criminal procedure.
Office Hours: Thursdays, 3:45pm – 5:45pm (Langdell Hall, 209E) by appointment. Please sign up here Links to an external site.
Email: jzajkowski@jd25.law.harvard.edu
Josh Young
Josh Young is a Master in Public Policy candidate at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, set to graduate in May 2025. He earned his B.A. in Business, Organizations, and Strategies and Philosophy from Franklin & Marshall College, where he was also a NCAA Division I athlete in both football and wrestling.
Josh's professional experience spans diverse sectors, including non-profit leadership, venture capital, and investment banking. As Chief of Staff at New Story Charity, he helped pioneer innovative housing solutions, including the world's first 3D-printed homes for vulnerable families and a Bitcoin mortgage product in El Salvador. He also played a key role in establishing Hometeam Ventures, a housing-focused venture fund.
Office Hours: Josh is available by request. Please email joshyoung@hks.harvard.edu
Elizabeth "Libby" Messman
Elizabeth “Libby” Messman is a second-year law student at Harvard Law School. Before law school, she studied Philosophy and Political Science at the University of Notre Dame and worked as a digital forensics investigator in a Cyber Crimes Unit. Her academic and professional interests relate to criminal law, sentencing, and theories of punishment.
Office hours: Thursday afternoons at the Smith Center by appointment. Please sign up using this link: https://calendly.com/emessman-jd26/office-hours Links to an external site.
Savannah Huitema
Savannah Huitema is a third year law student at Harvard Law School, and will be practicing corporate transactional law at Cravath, Swaine and Moore LLP in New York City. She received a B.A. in Political Theory and Constitutional Democracy at James Madison College at Michigan State University. After earning her undergraduate degree, she spent years before law school working in the fashion industry for Vogue, Fendi, Moncler, Bulgari, and other brands as a model.
Office Hours: Friday 9:00 am - 10:00 am Caspersen Student Center and by appointment (shuitema@jd25.law.harvard.edu).
Yannic Vitz
Yannic Vitz is a Visiting Fellow at the Department of Government and a PhD student in Philosophy at the Free University of Berlin, with graduate degrees from Humboldt University and the London School of Economics. He recently submitted his dissertation, which explores how meritocracy fuels moral inequality. His research interests include the moral analysis of inequality and social hierarchies, the intersection of philosophy and public policy, and debates on fairness, competition, responsibility, blame, and hypocrisy.
Office Hours: Tuesdays 2pm – 3pm & 3:30pm – 4:30pm, Café Knafel Building (CGIS Knafel (North) K121 Fisher Family Commons)
Elyse Weissberger
Elyse Weissberger is a third-year student at Harvard Law School. She has degrees in Environmental Economics & Policy, Business Administration and Food Systems. Prior to undergrad Elyse spent several years working in agriculture, bartending and waitressing. It was in this work and later work analyzing sustainable supply chains that Elyse discovered her passion for the labor movement. She plans to use her law degree to serve the working class.
Office hours: Friday from 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM or by appointment. Please email directly to schedule.
Patrick Healy
Patrick Healy is a second-year student at Harvard Law School. He studied philosophy at Canisius University in his hometown of Buffalo, New York and intends to work in government.
Office Hours: Fridays from 10:00am - 12:00pm, Harvard Law School Wasserstein Center first floor cafe
Myron Zhang
Myron Zhang is a JD student at the Law School. His academic interests include comparative constitutional and administrative law, as well as public international law. He has interned at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and a law firm in Washington D.C.
Office Hours: Wednesdays 10am–12pm, Harvard Law School Caspersen Student Center first floor cafe (ask for the Hark cafe), and by appointment.
Abbie LeBlanc
Abbie LeBlanc is a PhD student in the Department of Government studying political theory. She is broadly interested in the history of political thought, including particularly early modern political thought, feminist political thought, Indigenous political thought, and the politics of the novel. She has published on Rousseau’s Émile, Míkmaw treaty-making, education, Thomas Hardy and Sappho. Her dissertation project is an intellectual history of voyages to the moon.
Office Hours: Mondays and Thursdays. Sign up here: https://calendly.com/abbie_leblanc/15-minute-meeting Links to an external site..
Emily Tench
Emily Tench is a joint Master in Public Policy and Master in Business Administration student at the Harvard Kennedy School and Stanford Graduate School of Business. She has spent her career working on climate mitigation and adaptation at Dalberg Advisors and Sustainable Ventures and is interested in how to build political and financial systems that promote the common good.
Office hours: Thursdays and Fridays. Please sign up using this Calendly link (or email Emily directly if there are no available times that work): https://calendly.com/emilytench-1/emily-tench-office-hours Links to an external site.
Berna León
Berna León is a PhD researcher at Sciences Po Paris and a Visiting Fellow at the Department of Government. His research focuses on socioeconomic inequalities and the impact of neoliberalism on democracy, with a particular interest in class reproduction. He is the director of a progressive think tank, a regular op-ed contributor to newspapers such as El País and Le Monde, and the co-author of the book La Desigualdad en España.
Office hours: Tuesdays 2:00–3:30 p.m. and Thursdays 4:00–5:50 p.m. at Widener Library, West Stacks Reading Room — Rotunda. Sign up for one or two slots (if you need extra time) using this link: https://calendly.com/bleonreyes-fas/office-hours-berna-leon Links to an external site..
Hannah Kunzman
Hannah Kunzman is a PhD student in the department of Government studying political theory. Her research interests include childhood and the family, philosophy of education, feminist political thought, and structural injustice and theories of responsibility.
Office hours: Thursdays 11am-1pm, CGIS Knafel Fisher Family Commons. Please sign up for a slot at https://calendly.com/h-kunzman Links to an external site.. You may sign up for one or two slots depending on how much time you need.
Benjamin Kane
Benjamin Kane is a second-year student at Harvard Law School. He studied philosophy, politics, and economics at Claremont McKenna College and political and legal theory at the University of Warwick. He is interested in normative uncertainty and how our interactions might help us to both notice and resolve this uncertainty.
Office Hours: Thursday 3:45-5:45pm (Science Center Plaza)
Arzu Singh
Arzu Singh a third-year student at Harvard Law School. She studied social policy and economics at Northwestern University, and she worked in management consulting in Chicago before starting law school. She is interested in criminal legal reform and civil rights work, and her research has focused on reforms of the misdemeanor fee and fine regime in the United States.
Office hours: Thursdays, at the Science Center. Please sign up for an appointment via this link: https://calendly.com/asingh-jd25/30min Links to an external site..
Matthew Cohen
Matthew Cohen is a PhD student in the Government department, studying political theory. His current research project concerns the relationship between democracy and scientific methods, drawing in particular on the thought of John Dewey. Other interests of his include the concept of “individuality” in liberal thought, especially that of J.S. Mill, and theories of freedom.
Office hours: Thursday 1-3pm, Fisher Family Commons (CGIS Knafel). Please sign up at calendly.com/mcohen-g Links to an external site. Links to an external site. (or email me at mcohen@g.harvard.edu to set up another time)
Phil Back
Phil Back is a fourth-year student in Harvard's JD/MBA program. Before graduate school, he was a special forces officer in the United States Army.
Office Hours: Wed/Thurs, 3:20pm-4:20pm at Casperson Student Center (please sign up here: https://calendly.com/pback-jd25/officehours Links to an external site.)
Pranati Parikh
Pranati Parikh is a second-year student at Harvard Law School. She received her A.B. in Religion and Comparative Literature at Harvard College and her M.A. in Religion and Philosophy at the University of Chicago. She is interested in the intersection of law, religion, and literature, and in particular how literary representations of morality and the self are reflected in contemporary understandings of law and religion.
Office Hours: https://calendly.com/pparikh-jd26/justice-office-hours Links to an external site.
Maddie Stuzin
Maddie Stuzin is a second-year student at Harvard Law School. She studied history and English at Columbia University and received her MPhil in Criminology from the University of Cambridge with a focus on prison sociology and abolition. Prior to law school, she worked as a paralegal at the Federal Public Defender’s Office for the District of Maryland and plans to pursue a career in public defense.
Email: mstuzin@jd26.law.harvard.edu
Office Hours: Mondays, 12-1 and Wednesdays, 5:30 - 6:30 pm. Please sign up here: Links to an external site.https://calendly.com/mstuzin-jd26/office-hours Links to an external site.
Christian Eggers
Christian Eggers is a third year J.D. Candidate and Olin Law & Economics fellow at Harvard Law School. He completed his undergraduate major in Economics & Philosophy at Columbia University, and is a big fan of social welfare maximization, privacy law, and markets.
Office Hours: Tuesdays 2:30 - 3:30 and Thursdays 5:30 - 6:30.
Roop Patel
Roop Patel is a third-year student at Harvard Law School. She received her B.A. in Political Science from Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. She plans to pursue a career in public defense.
Office Hours: Monday from 10-2 pm by appointment. Please email me at ropatel@jd25.law.harvard.edu.
Jordan Kokot
Jordan Kokot (www.jdkokot.com Links to an external site.) is a PhD in Philosophy who has served as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Brandeis University and has taught courses on Philosophy and Technology for Harvard’s DCE. His research and teaching interests focus on the ethical, political, and phenomenological issues generated by the meteoric rise of digital and biomedical technologies, specifically BCI & virtual reality. He is also a co-curator of the multimedia art and literature journal field|guide (www.fieldguide.art Links to an external site.).
Office Hours:
Adam Harper
Adam Harper is a third-year student at Harvard Law School originally from Cartersville, Georgia. He earned his B.A. in Social Studies from Harvard College, where he lived in Mather House. As an undergraduate, Adam was a Freshman Outdoor Program (FOP) leader, played on the Men’s Rugby Team, and was a member of the Harvard Lampoon. In law school, his research focuses on the law of democracy.
Office Hours:
Stephanie Inchaustegui
Stephanie Inchaustegui is a third-year law student at Harvard Law School and received her B.A. in Political Science from UCLA. During undergrad, Stephanie worked for the U.S. Senate and political nonprofits. In addition, she conducted International Political Economy research for the Harvard Weatherhead Center. She spent her 1L summer working for The Hague-based, P.C.A. partner P.R.I.M.E. Finance in London, U.K. and worked in Sidley Austin’s Miami office for her 2L summer. Stephanie will be practicing corporate transactional law at Sidley Austin's Miami office in Fall 2025 following her graduation from HLS.
Office Hours: Please sign up here: https://calendly.com/sinchaustegui/stephanie-inchaustegui-s-office-hours-sign-up Links to an external site.
Email: sinchaustegui@jd25.law.harvard.edu
Grayce Burns
Grayce is a third-year student at Harvard Law School and could not be more excited to be helping teach Professor Sandel’s iconic course! Originally from Linthicum, Maryland, Grayce has an undergraduate degree in Philosophy and Public Policy from the College of William and Mary and a Masters of Science degree in Philosophy and Public Policy from the London School of Economics. While she’ll be joining a large law firm in Washington, D.C. after graduation, Grayce enjoys working in efforts to further LGBTQIA+ equality and support queer youth. She’s happy to chat with anyone who may be interested in pursuing a masters in philosophy or attending law school!
Office Hours: Mondays 3:30-4:30 on the Langdell Library Second Floor, by appointment over email (cburns@jd25.law.harvard.edu), or here Links to an external site..