Faculty & Staff

 

Manian
 

Maya Manian

Faculty Director, Health Law and Policy program
Professor of Law

 

Maya Manian is a nationally recognized expert on reproductive rights and justice. Her scholarship investigates the relationship between constitutional law, family law, and health care law, with a focus on access to reproductive health care. She publishes and presents widely on abortion rights. Her current work uses sociological methods to understand how legal restrictions on abortion care constrain a wide range of women and pregnant people’s medical care. She is also a PhD candidate in medical sociology at the University of California, San Francisco. She teaches Public Health Law and Policy, and Health Law Legislative and Regulatory Process.

 

Asha
 

Asha Scielzo

Director, Health Law and Policy Program
Adjunct Professor of Law

 

Asha Scielzo directs AUWCL's Health Law and Policy Program and assists with development of the health law and policy curriculum, recruitment of adjunct professors, and the expansion of health law externships and other career development programs for students and alumni. She teaches a wide range of courses on health care fraud and abuse, compliance, governance, and transactions. Professor Scielzo brings over 15 years of industry experience to the classroom. She was recently named the President-Elect Designate of the American Health Law Association, and will serve as President in 2024-2025. She is also privileged to serve on the Boards of Directors of the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics and the South Asian Bar Association-D.C. She teaches Health Care Corporate Compliance and Governance, Corporate Compliance and Ethics, and the Health Care Regulatory and Compliance Practicum.

 

Wiley
 

Lewis Grossman
Ann Loeb Bronfman Professor of Law 
Affiliate Professor of History

 

Lewis A. Grossman joined the faculty of the American University Washington College of Law in 1997. He became Professor of Law in 2003 and served as Associate Dean for Scholarship from 2008 to 2011. He teaches, writes, and speaks in the areas of food and drug law, health law, American legal history, and civil procedure. Professor Grossman’s book, Choose Your Medicine: Freedom of Therapeutic Choice in America, was published by Oxford University Press in fall 2021. He is the co-author of Food and Drug Law: Cases and Materials (with Hutt, Merrill, Cortez, Lietzan, & Zettler) (5th ed. 2022) and has served on five committees of the National Academies’ Health and Medicine Division. He teaches Food and Drug Law and the Advanced Topics in Health Law and Food and Drug Law Writing Seminar.

 

Williams
 

Thomas Wilson Williams
Assistant Professor of Law

 

Thomas Wilson Williams' work focuses on the integrative analysis of health law, bioethics, and entrepreneurship. He currently teaches courses on contract law, health law and the role of film and literary narrative in the construction and popular understanding of the roles of government institutions. In addition, he has previously taught courses on food and drug law, regulation of human subjects research, and entrepreneurship. His recent work considers the role entrepreneurs can play in the mitigation of health inequities and disparities. His work is currently focused on considering how entrepreneurship may serve to bolster reproductive health access and equity. In addition, Williams' work considers how the stories told about the institutions that govern us, especially in terms of public health and public health crises, inform and create problems with respect to the public understanding of how they should operate. He teaches Health Law and Pandemic in Popular Culture: Science, Narrative, and Public Policy.

 

Abrams
 

Jamie Abrams
Director, Legal Rhetoric Program
Professor of Law

 

Jamie Abrams is a scholar on legal education pedagogy and birthing decision-making. Her scholarship examines the medical standards of care governing pregnant and birthing women, applies masculinities theory to strengthen effective gender-based violence legal responses. Her work at her previous institution focused on how abortion politics crept into standards of care and how pregnant women are treated, in particular during delivery. She is an Editor and contributor for the Gender and Law Professors Blog, part of the Law Professor Blogs Network. She recently published a chapter in Laws of Medicine – Core Legal Aspects for the Healthcare Professional (2022) and an article on Reevaluating Regional Law Reform Strategies After Dobbs. She has won numerous teaching awards and appeared in media outlets such as the Today Show, NPR, the N.Y. Times, and the Washington Post. She teaches Legal Research & Writing. 

 

Duan
 

Charles Duan
Director, Legal Rhetoric Program
Professor of Law

 

Professor Charles Duan teaches and researches intellectual property and technology law, in particular how the patent system and related laws interact with regulation, competition, and the public interest. His recent work has explored mechanisms by which pharmaceutical patents affect drug prices and access to medicines. Over the last ten years, Duan has worked in public policy, first as director of the patent reform project at Public Knowledge and then as director of technology and innovation policy at the R Street Institute. He was recently appointed to an advisory committee of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and his work has been cited by the Supreme Court, federal appeals courts, and committees of Congress. He teaches Patent Law.

 

Dinerstein
 

Robert Dinerstein
Professor of Law EMERITUS

 

Robert Dinerstein is an expert in the area of disability rights law, specializing in the fields of clinical education and disability law, especially mental disabilities law (including issues of consent/choice, capacity and supported decision-making and other alternatives to guardianship), the Americans with Disabilities Act, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, legal representation of clients with mental disabilities, and disability and international human rights. He previously served as WCL's acting dean (2020-2021) and serves as the Chair of the American Bar Association's Commission on Disability Rights. 

Tori
 

Tori Nadel
Program Coordinator


Tori Nadel is the Program Coordinator of the Health Law and Policy Program at American University Washington College of Law. Prior to coming to AUWCL, she worked at NORC at the University of Chicago in their Public Health department. In this role, she supported senior staff on a variety of program evaluation projects, focused on topics such as intimate partner violence, public health accreditation, maternal mortality, rural health, and tribal populations. She was responsible for developing and editing deliverables, conducting qualitative data analysis, and providing project management support through the coordination of logistics among NORC team members, clients, and stakeholders. She graduated from American University School of Public Affairs in 2023 with her Masters of Public Administration and University in Delaware in 2015 with a B.A. in public policy.

Adjunct Health Law and Compliance Faculty