Ninth Junior Faculty Forum on Law and STEM

Stanford Law School, November 6-7, 2026

The
Northwestern, Penn, and Stanford law schools are pleased to announce a
Call for Papers for the Ninth Junior Faculty Forum on Law and STEM,
which will be held at Stanford on November 6-7, 2026. The Forum is
dedicated to interdisciplinary scholarship focusing on the intersection
of Law and Science-Technology-Engineering-Mathematics (STEM). We are
seeking submissions from junior faculty in any discipline interested in
presenting papers at the Forum. The submission deadline is June 15, 2026.

A
group of junior scholars will be chosen on a blind basis from among
those submitting papers by a jury of accomplished scholars with
expertise in Law and STEM. One or more senior scholars, not necessarily
from Northwestern, Penn, and Stanford, will comment on each paper. The
audience will include the participating junior faculty, faculty from the
host institutions, and invited guests. Participating junior faculty are
expected to stay for the full duration of the Forum.

Our
goal is to promote interdisciplinary research exploring how
developments in STEM are affecting law and vice versa. Preference will
be given to papers with strong interdisciplinary approaches integrating
these two areas of study.

We
invite submissions on any topic related to the intersection of law and
any STEM field. Potential topics include (but are not limited to):

• Artificial intelligence
• Autonomous vehicles
• Biomedical research and drug development
• Biometrics
• Bitcoin and other blockchain technologies
• ChatGPT and large language models
• Climate change technologies
• Computational law and algorithmic decisionmaking
• Cryptocurrency and NFTs
• Digital health and health data
• Genetics, epigenetics, and gene editing
• Machine learning and predictive analytics
• Nanotechnology
• Neuroscience and law
• Online security and privacy
• Personalized medicine
• Regulation of online platforms
• Robotics
• Spectrum policy
• Synthetic biology
• Virtual and augmented reality

There
is no publication commitment. Northwestern, Penn, and Stanford will
cover presenters’ and commentators’ travel expenses, though
international flights may be only partially reimbursed. Authors of
accepted papers are expected to attend the conference and present their
work in person.

QUALIFICATIONS:
To be eligible, authors must be teaching at a U.S. school of higher
education in a tenured or tenure-track position or as a Visiting
Assistant Professor or Fellow and must have received their first
tenure-track appointment no more than seven years before the conference.
Authors in tenured and tenure-track positions will be given priority.
American citizens or permanent residents teaching abroad are also
eligible to submit provided that they have held a faculty position or
the equivalent, including positions comparable to junior faculty
positions in research institutions, for less than seven years, and that
they earned their last degree within the past ten years. We accept
jointly authored submissions so long as the presenting coauthor is
individually eligible to participate in the Forum and none of the other coauthors
has taught in a tenured or tenure-track position for more than seven
years. Papers that will be published prior to the meeting are not
eligible. Authors may submit only one paper.

PAPER
SUBMISSION PROCEDURE: Electronic submissions should be made through
this website. Please remove all references to the author(s) in the
paper. The submission deadline is June 15, 2026.  We will notify
applicants as soon as practicable thereafter whether their papers have
been selected.
https://forms.gle/PPPn823V1DmYwQvP6

Any questions about the submission procedure should be directed to Professor Lisa Ouellette (ouellette@law.stanford.edu).

FURTHER
INFORMATION: Inquiries concerning the Forum should be sent to Lisa
Ouellette at Stanford Law School, David Schwartz at Northwestern
University Pritzker School of Law, or Christopher Yoo at University of
Pennsylvania Carey Law School.