Tulane Law School Welcomes New Faculty for Fall 2025

Tulane University Law School is welcoming a distinguished group of new faculty members this fall, including two professors, two Forrester Fellows, a Murphy Institute visiting professor, and several visiting scholars with deep experience in teaching and practice.

With these appointments, Tulane Law School continues to invest in its commitment to scholarly excellence, practical training, and public service. The new faculty members bring expertise across a broad spectrum of legal disciplines, from torts and technology to civil rights and immigration law.

Together, the new faculty reflects Tulane Law’s mission to provide students with an education rooted in both theory and practice, while addressing pressing issues of access to justice at local, national, and global levels.

Dean Marcilynn Burke welcomed the group, emphasizing that the incoming faculty “bring together rigorous scholarship that advances legal thought, dedicated teaching that inspires and equips our students, and deep practical experience that prepares them to

Two Professors Join the Faculty

Benjamin Sundholm joins the faculty as an Associate Professor of Law, teaching torts and health law. Sundholm earned his J.D. and M.A. in philosophy from Georgetown University, where he served as an articles editor on The Georgetown Law Journal. He previously taught at St. John’s University School of Law, where his courses included Torts and Tort Theory & Artificial Intelligence. Sundholm’s scholarship focuses on tort law and theory, medical technology, and health law. A former Forrester Fellow at Tulane, he also practiced at Debevoise & Plimpton before entering academia. He will continue to explore questions at the intersection of law, technology, and public health. 

Jared Miller joins Tulane as a Clinical Assistant Professor of Law in the Civil Rights and Federal Practice Clinic. A graduate of Columbia Law School, where he served as a senior editor of the Columbia Law Review, Miller brings a decade of experience as a public defender in New Orleans supervising attorneys and litigating felony and misdemeanor cases, including innocence claims. Most recently, he worked with Rosen Bien Galvan & Grunfeld LLP in San Francisco on complex civil rights litigation. He also worked on class-action cases challenging prison conditions and access to mental health care. His teaching will build on his extensive background in criminal defense and civil rights advocacy.

Forrester Fellows Bring Fresh Perspectives

Tulane’s Forrester Fellowship program, a hallmark of the law school’s commitment to nurturing future scholars, welcomes two new fellows this year who will teach in the year-long Legal Research and Writing Program. 

Travis L. Gray arrives from the University of Arkansas School of Law, where he completed an LL.M. in Agricultural and Food Law and taught Legal Writing and Federal Courts. A graduate of Vanderbilt University Law School, Gray clerked for Judge Rhesa Barksdale of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and practiced appellate litigation at Baker Botts LLP. His practice included representing clients before the U.S. Supreme Court and appellate courts nationwide.

April Xiaoyi Xu, a Harvard Law graduate, comes to Tulane from Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, where she worked in the Complex Litigation and Dispute Resolution group. She clerked for Judge Michael H. Simon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon and has published scholarship on digital privacy and the intersections of neuroscience and criminal law. Xu is also a freelance writer whose work has appeared internationally, bringing both academic and creative perspectives to her fellowship.

Murphy Visiting Assistant Professor Expands Global Reach

Joining Tulane as the Murphy Visiting Assistant Professor of Law is Kushagr Bakshi, whose scholarship bridges constitutional, comparative, and international law. Bakshi earned his LL.M. and is completing his S.J.D. at the University of Michigan Law School. He holds a B.A. and LL.B. from the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences in India. He clerked for the Constitutional Court of South Africa and has served as a visiting lecturer at Jindal Global Law School. His teaching and research add offerings at the law school and the Murphy Institute, an interdisciplinary unit at Tulane that focuses on political economy.

Experienced Visiting Faculty Enhance the Curriculum

In addition to these appointments, Tulane welcomes several accomplished visiting professors who will strengthen course offerings and provide students with real-world expertise.

• Felice Batlan, Professor of Law at Chicago-Kent College of Law and Director of its Institute for Compliance in Financial Markets, returns to Tulane as a Visiting Professor of Law. Batlan taught at Tulane from 2004 to 2006 and has since published widely in corporate law, legal history, and feminist legal theory. She will teach Contracts I and Business Enterprises.
• Gaby Cruz (L’21), serves as Visiting Clinical Assistant Professor of Law in the Immigrant Rights Clinic. Cruz, who is a graduate of Tulane Law, previously worked as a Staff Attorney and Immigrant Justice Corps Fellow in the same clinic, where she represented clients in asylum and humanitarian immigration claims. Her teaching and scholarship will center on immigration law and policy.
• Bruce Warfield Hamilton joins as a Visiting Clinical Assistant Professor of Law in the First Amendment Clinic. A graduate of LSU’s Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Hamilton brings experience as a civil rights litigator and advocate, including prior roles at the Southern Poverty Law Center, the ACLU of Louisiana, and his own law firm. He has also clerked for Chief Justice Catherine Kimball on the Louisiana Supreme Court.
• Ashwini Velchamy joins Tulane Law School as a Visiting Clinical Assistant Professor of Law with the Women’s Prison Project. Velchamy, a Columbia Law graduate with a B.S. from American University, will supervise students including in post-conviction litigation and pardon hearings. Before this role, Velchamy worked with the Capital Appeals Project in New Orleans and also assisted trial attorneys across Louisiana with writ applications to appellate courts.
• Jessica Wood (L’14) joins the Domestic Violence Clinic as a Visiting Clinical Assistant Professor of Law. A Tulane Law graduate, she previously served at Southeast Louisiana Legal Services, where she spent over a decade advocating for survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and child abuse. As Managing Attorney of the Domestic Violence Unit, she supervised multiple offices, trained new attorneys, and led trauma-informed advocacy initiatives