Susan Navarro Smelcer

Susan Navarro Smelcer

Assistant Professor

American Constitutional Law, Judicial Politics and Process, Computational Text Analysis, Political Methodology

Kirby 316-A

336.758.4095

smelcers@wfu.edu

JD, New York University School of Law, 2016
PhD, Emory University, 2015
MA, Emory University, 2008
BA, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2003

Areas of Expertise: American Constitutional Law, Judicial Politics and Process, Computational Text Analysis, Political Methodology

Susan Navarro Smelcer is an Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Wake Forest University. Her work explores how judges, litigants, and regulated parties use non-legal tools to shape the path of the law and the development of legal institutions.  Her work has been published in the Cornell Law Review, N.Y.U. Law Review, Judicature, Political Research Quarterly, PS: Political Science and Politics, and Studies in American Political Development, among others.

Before coming to Wake Forest, taught civil procedure and legal analytics at Georgia State University College of Law. and practiced antitrust law in Washington, DC, where she focused on antitrust class action litigation. She has also worked on Capitol Hill as an Analyst on the Federal Judiciary at the Congressional Research Service (CRS) in the Library of Congress. In this role, she researched issues in response to confidential inquiries from members of Congress relating to the operation of the federal courts and authored several reports examining the judicial appointment process, court administration, and judicial impeachment. During her tenure at CRS, Dr. Smelcer was detailed to the Senate Impeachment Trial Committee to assist with and advise on a judicial impeachment trial.

Dr. Smelcer earned an M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from Emory University and her J.D. from the New York University School of Law, where she was awarded the Vanderbilt Medal for outstanding service to the law school, the Betty Bock Prize in Competition Policy, and the Law and Economics Prize. Dr. Smelcer holds a B.A., with distinction and highest honors, from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in political science.