Quick Facts
Biography
Heather K. Gerken (born (1969-02-19)February 19, 1969) is the J. Skelly Wright Professor of Law at the Yale Law School, where she teaches Election Law and runs the San Francisco Affirmative Litigation Project. On February 21, 2017, Yale University announced that Gerken will be the next dean of Yale Law School, effective July 1.
Gerken grew up in Bolton, Massachusetts. In 1991, Gerken was graduated with an A.B. degree from Princeton University, summa cum laude. In 1994, she was graduated from the University of Michigan Law School, summa cum laude and Order of the Coif, where she served as editor-in-chief of the Michigan Law Review.
She clerked for Judge Stephen R. Reinhardt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and then for Justice David Souter of the U.S. Supreme Court during the 1995 Term.
She was an associate at Jenner & Block in Washington, D.C., from December 1996 to July 2000.
From July 2000 to June 2006, she was a professor at Harvard Law School, where she was also a fellow at the Harvard University Center for Ethics and the Profession from September 2003 to July 2004.