Heather Kristin Gerken is a legal scholar who specializes in constitutional law and election law. Currently, she is a Professor of Law at Yale Law School, where she is also the Dean of the school and runs the San Francisco Affirmative Litigation Project.Before becoming a full-time teacher, Gerken was an appellate lawyer in Washington, DC. She also served as a senior advisor to the Obama campaign in 2008 and 2012.Gerken's work been published in the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, the Stanford Law Review, and in popular publications. She has been a commentator for The New York Times, The New Yorker, NPR, CNN, MSNBC, and NBC News.Gerken received her A.B. from Princeton University, and her J.D. from the University of Michigan. After law school, she clerked for Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice David Souter of the United States Supreme Court.