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The University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law is proud to announce the election of Professor Natalie Ram to the American Law Institute (ALI). With the addition of Ram, Maryland Carey Law is currently represented by 23 full-time and emeritus faculty members in ALI.
Ram is a top scholar on the intersection of genetic privacy and the law, publishing groundbreaking research in Harvard Law Review, Texas Law Review, Columbia Law Review, Virginia Law Review, and Northwestern Law Review, and in the scientific journals Science and Nature Biotechnology. She teaches courses in Maryland Carey Law’s Law and Health Care Program and is an adjunct at the Berman Institute of Bioethics at Johns Hopkins University. Ram was a 2021 Greenwall Faculty Scholar in Bioethics.
“Membership in ALI is an exceptional professional honor,” said Maryland Carey Law Dean Renée Hutchins. “We are proud that this prominent institute has recognized Professor Ram’s intellectual caliber and dedication to improving the law by electing her for membership.”
Ram was part of a 2021 working group of the Maryland Legislature to consider genetic privacy regulations, which resulted in the first legislation passed in the United States creating a regulatory framework for police use of data from consumer genetic platforms. Her article, “Regulating Forensic Genetic Genealogy,” in Science built on that work to provide a template for states and countries to use in building regulations around the use of genetic data by law enforcement to investigate crimes.
Ram's current research focuses on Certificates of Confidentiality, a federal statutory bar on disclosure of certain private, identifiable research data. This work continues her exploration of legislative mechanisms regulating law enforcement access to data not created or intended for law enforcement purposes.
The American Law Institute, formed in 1923, is the leading independent organization in the United States producing scholarly work to clarify, modernize, and otherwise improve the law. Membership consists of eminent judges, lawyers, and law professors from all areas of the United States and from many foreign countries, selected for professional achievement and demonstrated interest in improving the law.
Ram joins the following Maryland Carey Law faculty ALI members:
- Taunya Banks
- David Bogen
- Richard Boldt
- Karen Czapanskiy
- Martha Ertman
- Donald Gifford
- Leigh Goodmark
- David Gray
- Michael Greenberger
- Diane Hoffmann
- Renée Hutchins
- Michael Millemann
- Paula Monopoli
- Robert Percival
- Michael Pinard
- Peter Quint
- William Reynolds
- Karen Rothenberg
- Jana Singer
- Maxwell Stearns
- Michael Van Alstine
- Gordon Young