Solomon Center Welcomes New Staff, Fellows

The Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy at Yale Law School will build upon its successful 2017–2018 academic year in 2018–2019, welcoming new and returning key staff, affiliates, and faculty.

Gabe Scheffler ’14 has joined the Solomon Center as a Research Fellow. Scheffler will be leading research efforts for the Center on Electronic Health Records and supporting its ongoing projects on the Affordable Care Act. He is also a Regulation Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Program on Regulation. His research focuses primarily on health law and policy, occupational regulation, and administrative law. Scheffler was previously a Staff Economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers and a research assistant at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for International Development. He holds a B.A. from Harvard College and a J.D. from Yale Law School. “We couldn't be more excited to welcome Gabe back to YLS,” Solomon Center Faculty Director Abbe Gluck said, “He was one of the student founders of our health law program and since then has become a leading health law scholar in his own right. He makes a tremendous addition to our team.” Scheffler will join returning Solomon Center Senior Fellow, Eugene Rusyn ’16, who will continue his research on cancer and end of life care, including scholarship stemming from the Center’s Cancer Conference.

The Center also welcomes Kathryn Mammel ’15 as its new Program Coordinator. Mammel will oversee the Center’s daily operations related to events, programs, and communications and brings a wealth of experience to the role. Mammel will contribute greatly to the Center’s Artificial Intelligence & Robotics in Medicine Conference this November. Most recently, Kathryn worked for the international arts and technology startup Shared_Studios, where she helped to expand the company’s technology into healthcare hackathons and humanitarian aid. She previously worked as an associate in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher where she gained experience in litigation and regulatory work with an emphasis on health-related matters. While at Yale Law School, Mammel was engaged in mental health advocacy as a member of the Veterans Legal Services Clinic and the Legislative Advocacy Clinic. “Kathryn is an exceptional addition to the Solomon Center team,” Solomon Center Executive Director Katie Kraschel said, “Her rich understanding not only of the law and health care, but also how YLS works have already made her an absolutely invaluable contributor to our work.”

The Center also continues its successful partnership with the Consortium for the Advanced Study of Brain Injury (CASBI) at Rockefeller University and the Cornell Medical Center. Dr. Joseph Fins, the Solomon Center Distinguished Scholar in Medicine, Bioethics, and Law, returns to lead that partnership along with a new Research Fellow, Zach Shapiro. Previously, Shapiro was a Presidential Scholar of Law at the Hastings Center Bioethics Research Institute and a Visiting Fellow of Law and Neuroscience at the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Law, Brain, and Behavior. Shapiro holds a B.A. from Brown University, an M.Sc. from the London School of Economics, where his thesis was focused on legal and ethical issues for patients in minimally conscious states, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School where he was a Student Fellow at the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics. Shapiro will join the CASBI@Yale team upon completing his clerkship with Judge Timothy Dyk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C.

The Center will also welcome Allison Hoffman ’04 as the Oscar M. Reubhausen Distinguished Senior Fellow and Visiting Professor to teach Insurance Law this spring. Hoffman is a Professor of Law at University of Pennsylvania Law School and a senior fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. In addition, the Center welcomes back Mark Barnes ’84, Visiting Lecturer in Law, to teach a new course, Biomedical Research Enterprise in America: Defining Legal Issues. Aaron Kesselheim, J.D., M.D., will return as a Distinguished Visitor to teach FDA law this fall.