Northeastern Law Welcomes Outstanding Faculty

Elettra Bietti, an expert on market regulation, data and antitrust law as they play out in the digital economy, joins Northeastern as assistant professor of law and computer science with the School of Law and the Khoury College of Computer Sciences. Bietti was previously a joint fellow at the Information Law Institute at NYU and the Digital Life Initiative at Cornell Tech in New York. Bietti studies how platform companies such as Google and Twitter shape people’s political and consumption choices and defends conceptions of privacy, data protection and antitrust law that are sensitive to infrastructural and collective concerns in the digital economy.

Prior to joining academia, Bietti practiced with Allen & Overy in London and Brussels. She holds an SJD and LLM from Harvard Law School, an LLB from University College London and a postgraduate diploma in IP law and practice from Oxford University. She is affiliated with the Berkman-Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University and the Information Society Project at Yale Law School.

Aliza Hochman Bloom, who studies race in the Fourth Amendment and criminal sentencing reforms, joins the faculty as assistant professor of law. Hochman Bloom was previously a faculty fellow at New England Law | Boston and a visiting scholar at Boston University School of Law, supervising students in the criminal law clinic. Prior to joining the legal academy, Hochman Bloom worked as an assistant federal public defender in the Middle District of Florida. A former clerk to Judge Charles R. Wilson of the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and Judge Charlene Honeywell of the Middle District of Florida, Hochman Bloom was also a litigation associate at the law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton. She earned her BA from Yale University and her JD from Columbia University School of Law.

Erin Islo, an expert on civil procedure, arbitration, algorithmic bias and economic justice, joins the faculty as assistant professor of law. Islo’s work utilizes philosophical, legal and empirical methods to explore the rights of consumers and workers and the civil and criminal regulation of the family. Islo is currently a doctoral candidate in philosophy at Princeton University, where she is completing a dissertation on the metaphysical foundations of ethical and political thought in early modern Europe.

Before pursuing her PhD, Islo clerked for Judge Barrington D. Parker Jr. of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. She is a recipient of the Watson Fellowship, one of several grants that have supported her transnational research on the structure and regulation of the family and the well-being of children in crisis. Islo received a bachelor’s degree from Haverford College, a master’s degree from KU Leuven and a JD from Yale Law School.

Katherine (Katie) Kraschel, an expert on the intersection of reproduction, gender, bioethics and health policy, with a particular concentration on fertility care and reproductive technologies, joins the Northeastern community as assistant professor of law and health sciences with the School of Law and Bouvé College of Health Sciences. Kraschel was previously a lecturer in law and executive director of the Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy at Yale Law School, where she co-taught the Reproductive Rights and Justice Project Clinic. In June, she was appointed chair of the board of Planned Parenthood of Southern New England. Kraschel is the author of multiple book chapters on issues related to fertility care and assisted reproduction and is a co-editor of COVID-19 and the Law: Disruption, Impact, and Legacy (Cambridge University Press, 2023).

Prior to joining academia, Kraschel was associate counsel at Yale New Haven Health. She holds a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from Mount Holyoke College and a law degree from Harvard Law School. In 2016, the National LGBT Bar Association named Kraschel one of the Best LGBT Lawyers Under 40, and in 2018 she was named one of the Top 40 Lawyers Under 40 by the American Bar Association.

Catherine Lizotte joins the law school as associate teaching professor in the Legal Skills in Social Context program, bringing 10 years of experience teaching legal research and writing and over a dozen years of experience as a local government law practitioner. Most recently, she was a faculty member at Boston University School of Law, where she taught in the first-year lawyering program. Previously, Lizotte served as counsel to the city of Boston for 14 years, first as assistant corporation counsel in the Government Services Division of the City of Boston Law Department. She subsequently served as legal advisor to the Boston Public Schools, leading the district’s in-house legal office.

Lizotte earned her BA in sociology from Saint Anselm College and her JD from Suffolk University Law School. After law school, she clerked for the justices of the Massachusetts Superior Court.

Sharmila Murthy joins the university as professor of law and public policy with the School of Law and the College of Social Sciences and Humanities. Initially, Murthy is on leave to serve as director for environmental justice at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, where she previously served as senior counsel. Her scholarship focuses on examining legal barriers to achieving environmental justice, improving access to water and addressing climate change.

Murthy’s academic positions include serving as professor of law at Suffolk University Law School and as a visiting scholar and fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, where she co-founded the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation Program at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy.

Murthy has received many scholarship and teaching awards and has served on numerous nonprofit boards. She received her BS in natural resources from Cornell University, MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and JD from Harvard Law School.

David Simon, an expert on intellectual property, healthcare law, data and privacy, joins the faculty as associate professor of law. Simon was previously a lecturer on law and a research fellow at the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology and Bioethics at Harvard Law School, where he led a three-year initiative dubbed Diagnosing in the Home: The Ethical, Legal, and Regulatory Challenges and Opportunities of Digital Home Health. He was previously the Frank H. Marks Intellectual Property Law Fellow at George Washington University School of Law and a visiting assistant professor at the University of Kansas School of Law. He also taught tort law at Northeastern in 2021.

Simon earned his BA from the University of Michigan, JD from Chicago-Kent College of Law, LLM from Harvard Law School and PhD from the University of Cambridge, where he was a Cambridge International Scholar and member of Trinity College.

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