New Faces

Naoka Carey joins the faculty as an assistant teaching professor in the Legal Skills in Social Context program. She is an interdisciplinary scholar interested in how social welfare and criminal legal policies can promote or undermine healthy development and reduce systemic inequities for children and families. Her scholarship has been published in peer-reviewed journals including Cornell Law Review and NYU Review of Law & Social Change.

Carey previously taught at NYU School of Law. She holds a PhD in developmental psychology from Boston College’s Lynch School of Education and Human Development, a JD from NYU School of Law and a master’s in education and AB from Harvard University. She has served as executive director of Citizens for Juvenile Justice, a policy attorney with CPCS Youth Advocacy Division, a senior litigation associate at K&L Gates and a law clerk for the Hon. Warren J. Ferguson of the Ninth Circuit.

Sarah Lee Day ’21 has been appointed an assistant teaching professor in the Legal Skills in Social Context program, where she has taught since 2023 as a visiting assistant professor.

Previously, Day served as a justice catalyst fellow at Reproductive Equity Now, where she focused on legal policy work on abortion and bodily autonomy and consulted with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and the White House Gender Policy Council. She also taught at Tufts University Experimental College, where her courses examined the right to abortion, law as social control and the transformative powers of law. Her work has been published in Health Affairs Forefront.

In addition to her JD from Northeastern Law, Day holds a BFA from Cornish College of the Arts, a BS in psychology and an MA in social justice and human rights from Arizona State University.

Connor Leighton-Cory joins the faculty as an assistant clinical professor and director of the new LGBTQ+ Clinic. Leighton-Cory has focused his legal career on representing LGBTQ+ immigrants and young people in civil legal matters. He was previously a senior staff attorney at Immigration Equality, where he engaged in policy efforts to protect transgender immigrants’ rights and managed a large volume of immigration cases for LGBTQ+ individuals and families.

Leighton-Cory received his JD from Georgetown Law, where he was a Public Interest Law Scholar and received the Lorri L. Jean Student Award for Excellence in LGBTQIA Leadership and Advocacy. His work has appeared in the Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law and the Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law and Policy. In 2019 he was recognized by the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association as one of the nation’s 40 Best LGBTQ+ Lawyers Under 40.

Dan Traficonte joins the faculty as an associate professor of law and public policy within the School of Law and the College of Social Sciences and Humanities. His teaching and research focus on the law and political economy of innovation and technology development. His written work has focused on the role of government-led R&D programs and university research in shaping science and technology. His work has been published in the Yale Law Journal, Harvard Journal of Law & Technology, Cardozo Law Review and other leading journals.

Prior to joining Northeastern, Traficonte served as associate professor of law at Syracuse University College of Law, where he won the university-wide Meredith Teaching Recognition Award. He holds a PhD in political economy from MIT, a JD from Harvard Law School and a BA in biology from the University of Chicago.