With the start of the new school year, Penn Law is welcoming two new faculty members, Beth Simmons and Ryan Doerfler, to the full-time faculty. In addition, the Law School and its centers and institutes have added new fellows and staff members to their ranks.

“We are extremely happy to add these talented scholars to Penn Law,” said Ted Ruger, Dean of the Law School and Bernard G. Segal Professor of Law. “Their work reaches across disciplinary boundaries to explore the intersections of law with other fields and will enrich our already formidable academic community.”

Simmons is the Andrea Mitchell University Professor, with joint faculty appointments in the Law School and the Department of Political Science in the School of Arts and Sciences. She is also the university’s eighteenth Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor. Simmons previously taught at Harvard University and is an expert in international law and human rights.

Doerfler is an Assistant Professor of Law and holds a JD from Harvard Law School and a PhD in philosophy from Harvard University. He was previously a Bigelow Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School and a clerk for the Honorable Sandra L. Lynch for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. His scholarship focuses on questions of statutory and constitutional interpretation, drawing from his studies in philosophy.

The Law School is also welcoming two new Sharswood Fellows, Deepa Das Acevedo and Shayak Sarkar. Sharswood Fellowships provide two years of funding for fellows so that junior scholars can work on research, writing, and teaching.

Das Acevedo researches employment law and new work models using social science methods, including ethnographic fieldwork. She received her JD and a PhD in anthropology from the University of Chicago.

Sarkar uses legal and economic analysis to research educational quality and financial access for the poor. He received his JD from Yale Law School, and he is finishing a PhD in economics from Harvard University.

In addition to the new faculty and Sharswood Fellows, the Law School’s centers and institutes added a number of new fellows and staff members.

Lawrence Hamermesh joined the Institute for Law and Economics as executive director. Hamermesh is concurrently the Ruby R. Vale Professor of Corporate and Business Law at Widener University’s Delaware campus and Director of the Widener Institute of Delaware Corporate and Business Law.

Andrea Cayley is the new program director for the Center for Ethics & the Rule of Law. Cayley previous worked for the United Nations in Bosnia, Croatia, and Cambodia on issues of human rights and war crimes prosecutions.

The Center for Technology, Innovation & Competition has added three new fellows: James Park L’14, Sharada Srinivasan, and Hendrik Wendland.

Park is a graduate of Penn Law and also holds a Master of Computer and Information Technology from Penn Engineering. He previously served as a legal intern in the I.P. Division of the City of Philadelphia Law Department and at the Software Freedom Law Center.

Srinivasan holds a Master of Public Policy degree from the National Law School of India University and was previously an intern at the Global Public Policy Institute.

Hendrik Wendland holds an LLM from Columbia Law School, where he was also a research assistant. He specializes in European law and antitrust issues.

The Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice welcomes two new fellows; Amanda Bergold and Brian Murray.

Bergold studies the application of psychological principles to the legal system, focusing on jury and jury decision-making. She will receive her PhD in psychology in the fall of 2016 from John Jay College and the Graduate Center, the City University of New York.

Murray studies criminal law, criminal procedure, and professional responsibility, focusing on how attorneys behave, the procedural realities of plea-bargaining, and the influence of professional responsibility norms. He was previously an Abraham L. Freedman Fellow at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law, and he holds a JD from Notre Dame Law School.

The Penn Program on Regulation welcomes Gabriel Scheffler as a new fellow. Scheffler received his JD from Yale Law School and previously worked at the Council of Economic Advisers, where he focused on health care and tax policy.