Professor Rebecca Green Honored With Plumeri Award for Faculty Excellence
On May 12, Professor Rebecca Green was one of 10 William & Mary faculty to receive the 2023 Plumeri Award for Faculty Excellence.
The award was established in 2009 thanks to a generous gift from Joseph J. Plumeri II ’66, D.P.S. ’11. Read more about Mr. Plumeri and all of this year's Plumeri Award recipients.
“Joe had the vision to create an award that would provide truly transformative support for W&M faculty,” said William & Mary President Katherine Rowe during the receognition event. “Intellectual excellence is about going to the edge of knowledge, where there aren’t paths, signposts or roadmaps, and — in a sustained way — staying there and bringing others with you. At William & Mary, we convene incredible talent here to change the world for the better, and the award recipients here today do that by living on the edge of knowledge every day.”
Green is an associate professor of law at William & Mary Law School where she teaches courses in election law, redistricting and GIS, privacy law, contract law and alternative dispute resolution. Professor Green co-directs the Election Law Program, a joint project of the Law School and the National Center for State Courts that provides resources for judges on election law topics. Green’s research interests focus on the intersection of privacy law and elections.
Green began at the Law School in 2005, teaching a privacy law course as an adjunct professor. She became a senior lecturer in 2008 and a professor of the practice of law in 2011, teaching courses in privacy law, election law and alternative dispute resolution.
The Class of 2016 selected Green to receive the Walter L. Williams, Jr., Memorial Teaching Award, given annually to one professor by the graduating class to recognize outstanding teaching.
In 2018, Green was named a Reveley Interdisciplinary Faculty Fellow, the first law faculty member to receive this campus-wide honor. Green served as Kelly Professor for Excellence in Teaching from 2019 to 2021.
Green’s research interests focus on the intersection of privacy law and elections, most recently on the topics of election observation, election surveillance, and redistricting transparency. She has also explored the use of alternative dispute resolution in election processes.
Prior to earning her J.D. at Harvard Law School where she was actively involved in the Harvard Mediation Program as its training director, Green received a master’s degree in Chinese legal history from Harvard University and assisted with U.S.-China trade negotiations at the U.S. Trade Representative in Washington, D.C.
In 2008, Green became co-director of the Election Law Program, a joint project of the Law School and the National Center for State Courts. In that role, Green runs a series of grant-funded projects that provide resources for judges deciding election disputes. She also supervises a variety of student activities geared toward gaining exposure to election law topics. Her supervision includes co-founding Revive My Vote with a student to assist Virginians with prior felony convictions in regaining the right to vote; supervising student research projects for such groups as the ABA Standing Committee on Election Law, the League of Women Voters, the Presidential Commission on Election Administration, and Protect Democracy; and advising the student-run Election Law Society and State of Elections blog.
In the years leading up to and during the 2020 election, Green served as a member of the National Task Force on Election Crises. She also helped students start the Alliance of Students at the Polls (ASAP), a group mobilizing a national network of law students to work toward greater participation and public confidence in U.S. elections.
Green is regularly quoted in national and international media including the New York Times, The Guardian, Forbes, the New Yorker, the Washington Post, Politico, and others. She has provided commentary on voting and elections on NPR, C-SPAN, the BBC, and elsewhere.
Since January 2021, Green has served as one of three university ombuds at William & Mary, assisting faculty and staff with workplace conflict resolution.
About William & Mary Law School
Thomas Jefferson founded William & Mary Law School in 1779 to train leaders for the new nation. Now in its third century, America’s first law school continues its historic mission of educating citizen lawyers who are prepared both to lead and to serve.