Faculty Focus is a monthly publication
documenting the activities, accomplishments, and honors of the University
of Houston Law Center Faculty.
Editor, Katy Stein Badeaux,
kastein@central.uh.edu
Previous editions of Faculty Focus can be
accessed here.
July 2013
Barbara Evans has been appointed to an
Institute of Medicine committee that is conducting a NASA-sponsored study of
crew health standards for spaceflights in interplanetary space and is attending
meetings in Washington this summer in connection with that study. On July 18,
she received notice of award for an FDA-sponsored study of randomization
techniques in large-scale databases that is being led by Harvard Pilgrim
Healthcare Institute and the FDA/Duke Clinical Trials Transformation
Initiative. Professor Evans’ Greenwall-sponsored research
project on health database privacy is being extended for a fourth year through
2014, and she continues work under an NIH-funded cancer genetics
project with University of Washington. In June and July, she completed two new
articles entitled Mining the Human Genome
after Association for Molecular Pathologists v. Myriad Genetics and Minimizing Liability Risks under the ACMG
Recommendations for Reporting Incidental Findings in Clinical Exome and Genome Sequencing, which are now undergoing
scientific peer review. Three law articles and book chapters presented at Spring law symposia are in final edits or in press, and she
is working on a study of FDA’s authority to enter collaborative agreements with
private-sector entities under the FDAAA statute. Professor Evans is
representing the UH Health Law and Policy Institute in discussions to explore
creation of a Texas Medical Center Health Policy Institute that would
facilitate cross-disciplinary studies of health policy questions. She is
developing a new course on infrastructure project financing and public-private
partnerships to debut in Spring 2014 and is working
with practitioners and lenders all throughout the world to develop case studies
and materials for the course.
Geoffrey Hoffman’s comments on the effect
of the Supreme Court’s U.S. v. Windsor
DOMA decision were published on the Immigration Professors’ blog, available at http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2013/06/comments-on-the-impact-of-windsor-v-united-states-on-immigration-law.html.
Professor Hoffman was interviewed by KUHF about immigration reform, http://app1.kuhf.org/articles/1372439434-Whats-Next-For-Immigration-Reform.html.
Professor Hoffman was also interviewed about immigration reform for an appearance
on ABC Channel 13, http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/video?id=9156523&pid=null&syndicate=syndicate§ion=.
Also
this month, Professor Hoffman served as a panel expert on Special Immigrant
Juvenile status in a CLE telephone conference for the Federal Bar Association’s
Immigration Law section. Professor Hoffman additionally published commentary in
the Immigration Prof blog regarding the Border Security amendment to the
immigration reform bill currently moving through Congress, available at
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2013/07/on-line-symposium-comprehensive-immigration-reform-is-the-cure-the-border-surge-worse-than-the-disea.html.
Jacqueline Lipton published "Cyberlaw 2.0" in The Law of the Future and the Future of Law, Volume II (Muller et al eds., 2012).
Douglas Moll’s scholarship on
shareholder oppression was cited by the Iowa Supreme Court in the recent
decision Baur v. Baur Farms,
Inc., 2013 WL 2710449 (Iowa June 14, 2013).
Raymond Nimmer
was selected
for inclusion in the 20th Edition of The Best Lawyers in America
in the practice areas of: Copyright
Law, Information Technology Law, Litigation - Intellectual Property, Litigation
- Patent, Patent Law and Trademark
Law.
Michael A. Olivas has written "The Accidental Historian or, How I Found My
Groove in Legal History," for a forthcoming University of Texas Press volume
that will publish papers by historians from a Texas A&M
book conference, to be held at the Glasscock Center for
Humanities Research, September 27. His paper is the conference Keynote Address:
http://calendar.tamu.edu/?calendar_id=175&y=2013&m=09&d=27&eventdatetime_id=14003&
(conference information). He has also completed the 2013 Supplement to his
casebook, The Law and Higher Education: Cases and Materials on Colleges in Court (3d ed. Carolina Academic Press); beginning
with this supplement, he has added a co-author, Tulane Law Professor Amy Gajda. He also conducted several briefings for reporters on
the SCOTUS affirmative action and Voting Rights Act cases.
Jordan Paust’s chapter, "Basic
Forms of International Law and Monist, Dualist, and Realist Perspectives"
was published in Basic Concepts of Public International Law: Monism & Dualism 244-265 (Belgrade 2013).
His article, "International Law, Dignity, Democracy, and
the Arab Spring" was also published in 46 Cornell International Law Journal 1-19
(2013).
Jessica L. Roberts’s article, “'Healthism': A Critique of the Antidiscrimination
Approach to Health Insurance and Health-Care Reform" was reviewed by Elizabeth
Weeks Leonard in the online journal JOTWELL
(Journal of Things We Like {Lots)). http://health.jotwell.com
Susan Sakmar presented “Shale Gas and
National Security: Should the United States Export Its Shale Gas?” at the
Institute for Energy Law, 4th Law of Shale Plays Conference, June 6-7, 2013, Fort
Worth, TX., available at http://www.cailaw.org/institute-for-energy-law/events/2013/4th-law-of-shale-plays-conference.html.
Professor Sakmar was also invited to speak on the “Natural Gas Panel” at the
DMV Kema 6th Annual Utility of the Future Leadership
Forum, June 17–19, 2013, Washington, D.C., available at
http://www.dnvkema.com/services/conferences/utility-future-series/forum2013.aspx.
Sandra Guerra Thompson attended the meeting of
the Board of Directors of the Houston Forensic LGC of which she is a member on
July 10, 2013. On July 11, she attended the roundtable workshops of the Texas
Forensic Science Commission in Austin.