About the Tsai Institute for Technology, Science, Innovation, and Law

The Tsai Institute for Technology, Science, Innovation, and Law focuses on the intersection of law and technology, science, and innovation.

The Institute explores the law’s central role in encouraging and regulating scientific research and discovery as well as the development and commercialization of new technologies.

The Institute also explores the converse—how scientific discoveries and new technologies affect the law, legal ethics, governmental institutions and agencies, private industry, and society.

The Institute facilitates academic research, offers educational programming, and provides educational opportunities in these areas to benefit students, scholars, lawyers, scientists, technologists, policymakers, innovators, and the public.

Co-Directors

	Nathan Cortez Co-Director of the Tsai Center for Law, Science and Innovation and Adelfa Botello Callejo Endowed Professor of Law in Leadership and Latino Studies
	David O. Taylor Founding Co-Director of the Tsai Center for Law, Science and Innovation and Professor of Law
	Meghan Ryan  Co-Director of the Tsai Center for Law, Science and Innovation; James Cleo Thompson, Sr. Trustee Professor of Law; Gerald J. Ford Research Fellow; and Altshuler Distinguished Teaching Professor

Associate Directors

• Laura Ginsberg Abelson, Assistant Professor of Law
• Monika Ehrman, Professor of Law
• Zachary L. Henderson, Assistant Professor of Law 
• Anna Mance, Assistant Professor of Law 
• Sari Mazzurco, Assistant Professor of Law
• Seema Mohapatra, MD Anderson Foundation Endowed Professor in Health Law and Professor of Law
• Shani Shisha, Assistant Professor of Law

Affiliated Faculty

In addition to our Co-Directors and Associate Directors, the Tsai Institute is pleased to support the research and teaching of other outstanding SMU Dedman School of Law faculty exploring the intersection of law and technology, science, and innovation.

• Hillel J. Bavli, Professor of Law
• Carliss Chatman, Professor of Law
• Christopher Jenks, Affiliate Research Professor of Law
• Orly Mazur, Professor of Law
• Carla L. Reyes, Professor of Law
• Ozz Siddiq, Chief Intellectual Property Counsel, Lennox International Inc.
• Andrea Tosato, Homer R. Mitchell Endowed Professor in Commercial and Insurance Law
• Jenia Iontcheva Turner, Amy Abboud Ware Centennial Professor in Criminal Law
• Kandace D. Walter, Director of the Small Business and Trademark Clinic, and Associate Clinical Professor of Law

 

Institute Staff

 

Peter Altabef
Executive Director

 

Rosemond Odoom Cann, M.B.A., '28
Program Specialist

 

 

Tsai Scholars (2025-2026)

Meenakshi Baddela, Niki Carter, Grant Maclaurin, Jayson McKinley, Hernan Valles, Xiao Bai, Olivia Behne, Seylor Cluck, Kyoung Choi, Yussra Hamid, Rohan Hindia