Natalie Nanasi

Natalie Nanasi is an Associate Professor of Law and the founding Director of the Judge Elmo B. Hunter Legal Center for Victims of Crimes Against Women.  

In the Hunter Clinic, Professor Nanasi supervises students’ representation of survivors of intimate partner violence, human trafficking, and sexual abuse in a broad range of legal matters. She also oversees students as they conduct systemic policy advocacy and community education to find long-term solutions to the problem of violence against women. Professor Nanasi's research explores the intersection of gender and feminist theory with immigration and firearms. Her scholarship has appeared in numerous journals and law reviews, including the Ohio State Law Review, Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, Harvard Law & Policy Review, Temple Law Review, Villanova Law Review, and Columbia Journal of Gender and Law.

Prior to arriving at SMU, Professor Nanasi was a Practitioner-in-Residence and the Director of the Domestic Violence Clinic at American University, Washington College of Law (WCL). Before joining the faculty at WCL, she was the Senior Immigration Attorney and Pro Bono Coordinator at the Tahirih Justice Center, where she represented immigrant women and girls fleeing human rights abuses such as female genital cutting, domestic and sexual violence, forced marriage, and honor crimes. Professor Nanasi also served as counsel in the landmark asylum case of Matter of A-T- and as an Equal Justice Works Fellow from 2007-2009, with a focus on the U visa. Prior to her work at Tahirih, she was a law clerk to the Honorable Lynn Leibovitz of the District of Columbia Superior Court.

Professor Nanasi received her J.D. from Georgetown Law, where she earned an Equal Justice Foundation fellowship for her work at the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Center in New Delhi, India, and assisted in the representation of HIV-positive immigrants at Whitman Walker Clinic Legal Services. Prior to her legal career, Professor Nanasi was a rape crisis counselor and supported single teenage mothers at a transitional residence facility in Boston.