April Xiaoyi Xu
Forrester Fellow
Education & Affiliations
Biography
April Xiaoyi Xu is a Forrester Fellow at Tulane Law School. She received her J.D. from Harvard Law School and her B.A., summa cum laude, in Politics and Spanish (minor) from Pomona College. Her research interests concentrate on the intersections between criminal law and health law. Xu's prior publications have focused on the insanity defense, digital privacy law and medical isolation law surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, among other topics.
Xu worked as a Teaching Fellow for Judge Joseph A. Greenaway and a Research Assistant for Professors Jeannie Suk Gersen, Urs Gasser, Amy Finkelstein, and Noah Feldman. She interned for Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Xu started her legal career as a law clerk for Judge Michael H. Simon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon. She then practiced law at Allen & Overy and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe as a litigation associate.
Contributions
Selected Presentations
- Presenter, Southeastern Association of Law Schools (SEALS) - Amelia Island, FL (July 2026)
- Presenter, Law and Society Association Annual Meeting - San Francisco, CA (May 2026)
- Plenary Panelist, Governance of Emerging Technologies and Science Conference - Phoenix, AZ (May 2026)
- Presenter, Tulane Research, Innovation, & Creativity Summit (April 2026)
- Presenter, Neurolaw Works in Progress Workshop (February 2026)
- Presenter, ABA Criminal Justice Academics Committee and AALS Section on Criminal Law’s 2025 Criminal Justice Academic Workshop (December 2025)
- Presenter, Central States Law Schools Association Scholarship Conference - hosted by the University of Kansas School of Law, Lawrence, KS (October 2025)
- Presenter, Tulane Asian Pacific American Law Students Association (APALSA) - New Orleans, LA (October 2025)
- Panelist, Harvard Law School Clerkship Panel (February 2022)
- Presenter, Ideas @ Pomona Summit - San Francisco, CA (October 2019)
- Presenter, Salzburg Cutler Law Fellows Program (March 2021)
- Panelist, Pomona College Alumni Panels (several panels during 2020-2022)
Articles
April Xiaoyi Xu, Personality Disorders and the Insanity Defense, 17 U.C. Irvine L. Rev. __ (forthcoming 2027).
Richard Liu, Thaddeus Mason Pope, and April Xiaoyi Xu, Deep and Continuous Palliative Sedation Without Artificial Nutrition and Hydration: An International Review, 35 Ind. Int’l Comp. L. Rev. 67-151 (2025).
April Xiaoyi Xu, Catch and Contain Novel Pathogens Early!–Assessing U.S. Medical Isolation Laws as Applied to a Future Pandemic Detection and Prevention Model, 55 U. Mich. J.L. Reform 23-41 (2021).
April Xiaoyi Xu, Note, Smartphones Out, Bye COVID-19!—Assessing the Possibility of Exporting China’s Global Pandemic-Era QR Codes as Health Certificates, Harv. J.L. & Tech. Dig. (2021).
April Xiaoyi Xu, They Belong with Taylor Swift: Applying Trademark Law and Textual Analysis to the Branding of Love Song Lyrics, 2020 U. Ill. L. Rev. Online 139-151 (2020).
April Xiaoyi Xu, But What If Big Brother’s Surveillance Saves Lives?–Comparative Digital Privacy in the Time of Coronavirus, 54 Creighton L. Rev. 147-172 (2020).
April Xiaoyi Xu, When Judges Compete on a Lawless Terrain: Possible Futures for Clerkship Hiring, Harv. L. & Pol’y Rev. (2020).
April Xiaoyi Xu, Applying the Model Penal Code (MPC)’s Insanity Defense to Sleepwalking Killers and Psychopaths: Interfacing Neuroscience and Criminal Law, 23 New Crim. L. Rev., 471-515 (2020).
