The American Bar Foundation (ABF) has awarded doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships to five outstanding scholars. Selected from a highly competitive pool of applicants, these scholars were chosen for their significant empirical and interdisciplinary research proposals in law and social science.
This year, the selected scholars are:
- Joshua Aiken, Doctoral Fellow in Law & Inequality
- Sino Esthappan, ABF/Northwestern University Doctoral Fellow in Law & Social Science
- Robert Gelles, ABF/University of Chicago Doctoral Fellow in Law & Social Science
- Kyneshawau Hurd, Postdoctoral Fellow in Law & Inequality
- Ewurama Okai, ABF/AccessLex Institute Doctoral Fellow in Legal & Higher Education
For over thirty years, the ABF has offered doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships to foster the next generation of scholars in law, social science, and higher education. The ABF offers fellows the opportunity to engage with our intellectual community, gain feedback on scholarly and professional projects in workshop settings, and utilize the ABF’s resources toward academic goals. Fellows receive valuable mentorship from ABF researchers, a stipend to support living expenses while they complete their dissertation projects, and support for research expenses. Past fellows have built on their experiences at the ABF by moving on to promising careers, including as tenure track professors, legal professionals, and applied researchers.
These fellowships are possible thanks to the support of the Law & Society Association, the National Science Foundation, AccessLex Institute, Northwestern University, and the University of Chicago.
“We are deeply grateful for the donor support that allows us to identify and mentor the next generation of sociolegal scholars,” said ABF Executive Director Mark C. Suchman. “Our doctoral and postdoctoral fellows consistently bring fresh perspectives and innovative ideas that contribute to the ABF’s standing as the nation’s leading sociolegal research institute. We hope these emerging scholars will benefit in turn from the ABF’s vibrant intellectual community and from the invaluable insights and guidance of their ABF mentors.”
Meet the 2024 Postdoctoral Fellow:
Kyneshawau Hurd (she/her) is a social psychologist and psychology and law scholar studying the intersections of diversity, dominance, and discrimination. At the ABF, she will investigate how ideologies surrounding diversity and psychological preferences for group-based hierarchy interact with, maintain, and support legal regimes in intellectual property law, administrative law, and contract law. Her research explores how these interactions dilute the potency of anti-discrimination efforts in business and law, contributing to inequality. Hurd completed her J.D./Ph.D. in Jurisprudence and Social Policy at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.
Meet the 2024 Doctoral Fellows:
Joshua Aiken (he/him) is a Ph.D. Candidate in African American Studies and History at Yale University. Aiken’s dissertation, titled “The Armed Individual: Race, Firearms Regulations, and the Rule of Law since Reconstruction,” uses case studies to examine how the legal treatment of guns, gun manufacturers, and gun owners has evolved. It explores how these changes reflect shifting ideas of danger, safety, citizenship, and violence, particularly in relation to racial disparities in harm.
Sino Esthappan (he/him) is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Sociology at Northwestern University. Esthappan’s dissertation examines how local officials and national policymakers collaborate to develop and implement various risk assessment practices in U.S. pretrial hearings. This research aims to shed light on how innovations in risk assessment technologies influence changes in criminal court punishment practices.
Robert Gelles (he/him) is a Ph.D. Candidate in Sociocultural and Linguistic Anthropology at the University of Chicago. His dissertation investigates how conservative legal scholars create and promote their preferred forms of legal interpretation within the legal field. Through ethnographic research, he explores how these scholars and law students work to establish a space for Conservatism in what they see as a predominantly Liberal or Left-leaning profession. Gelles’ research aims to clarify the mindset of lawyers and the dynamic relationship between law and politics in the United States as they are practiced.
Ewurama Okai (she/her) is a J.D./Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Sociology at Northwestern University. Her proposed dissertation, tentatively titled “Un(Making) the Future of Litigation,” explores how actors in the civil rights field construct visions of what is possible, necessary, or inevitable in the legal landscape. Through in-depth interviews and content analysis of legal scholarship, her project investigates how imagined futures shape present legal practices, discourse, and strategies. She aims to reveal how legal professionals’ cognitive and emotional orientations to the future contribute to broader processes of legal change.
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About the American Bar Foundation
The American Bar Foundation (ABF) is the world’s leading research institute for the empirical and interdisciplinary study of law. The ABF seeks to expand knowledge and advance justice through innovative, interdisciplinary, and rigorous empirical research on law, legal processes, and legal institutions. To further this mission the ABF will produce timely, cutting-edge research of the highest quality to inform and guide the legal profession, the academy, and society in the