Christine Haight Farley, Professor of Law at American University Washington College of Law, has been awarded a Fulbright Distinguished Chair for the 2026–2027 academic year. She will serve as the Fulbright–Hanken Distinguished Chair in Business and Economics at the Hanken School of Economics in Helsinki, Finland. Fulbright Distinguished Chair appointments are among the most prestigious awards in the Fulbright Scholar Program and are granted to scholars with significant records of research and teaching.

During her residency, Professor Farley will conduct a comparative study of how U.S. and European (particularly Nordic) law has evolved to protect modernist industrial design, focusing on the divergence between trademark-based protection in the U.S. and copyright-based protection in Europe and the policy implications of those approaches. In addition to her research, she will teach at Hanken, deliver guest lectures at other Finnish universities, and build academic collaborations.

Founded in 1909, the Hanken School of Economics is one of the oldest business schools in the Nordic countries and is recognized for its strengths in intellectual property law, including its master’s program offered in collaboration with the IPR University Center, Finland’s leading academic IP research institution.

Established in 1946, the Fulbright Program is the largest education exchange program in history operating in more than 160 countries to promote peace and understanding through cross-cultural collaboration among scholars and students.