SJD Student Profiles

Each year Penn Law welcomes a select group of international scholars to begin work on their SJD degree. While the projected completion time for this degree is three to four years, during this initial year, these students take courses here at Penn Law and begin to develop their dissertation under faculty guidance. This year Penn Law welcomes the following students as SJD candidates:

Continuing SJD students

Chao-Tien Chang GL'10 (SJD Candidate)

Chao-Tien is a 2010 graduate of the Penn Law LLM program. Before coming to Penn Law, she was a Ph.D. student focusing on Human Rights and Comparative Constitutionalism in National Taiwan University, where she also earned a Master of Laws and a Bachelor of Laws. She has several years of experience working as an associate or apprentice attorney for top firms in Taiwan and has published research on international human rights treaties and the Quebec sovereignty movement. Chao-Tien's main area of interest lies in bioethics and health law and will undertake a project for the SJD program entitled, "Biobanks in East Asia: A Comparative Study."

Giacomo Rojas Elgueta (SJD Candidate)

Giacomo Rojas Elgueta graduated with distinction from the Penn Law LL.M. program in December 2008. He is currently an assistant professor of private law at the University of Roma Tre, from which he received both his first degree in law in 2001 (magna cum laude) and his doctoral degree in 2005. Giacomo has published a book on the relations between marital property and life insurance proceeds and several articles on different corporate and private law topics. His S.J.D. research project focuses on the divergences and convergences of common law and civil law traditions on asset partitioning."

Matteo Erede (SJD Candidate)

Matteo Erede is a 2008 graduate of the Penn Law LLM program. Matteo received magna cum laude recognition for both his first degree in Law (2004) at the Università degli Studi di Milano, and previously his graduate degree in Law and Business Administration (2001) at the Università Bocconi in Milano, Italy, where he currently has adjunct professor status in Company and Business Law. Matteo has published several articles on different corporate law topics in addition to being member of the board of editors of the Rivista delle società. With his SJD research project on corporate governance, Matteo aims to undertake a comparative study on the evolving role of hedge fund and institutional investor activism in Italy and the U.S.

Maayan Filmar (SJD Candidate)

Maayan Filmar earned her LLM in Intellectual Property in 2009 from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. She also holds a Bachelor of Law and Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Haifa in Israel. While at Cardozo, Maayan served as a Judicial Intern for a federal judge in the District of New Jersey. Following her graduation, Maayan served as a volunteer Law Clerk for the Honorable Sandra L. Townes in the Eastern District of New York. Maayan is specifically interested in patent law. Her LLM thesis, titled A Critique of In Re Bilski, which was published in the De Paul Journal of Art, Technology and Intellectual Property, criticized a controversial Federal Circuit decision relating to the application of the subject matter doctrine to information age inventions. Building on her LLM thesis, Maayan will focus her SJD research on improving section 101's ability to exclude low quality patents from our patents system.

Simin Gao GL'10 (SJD Candidate)

Simin Gao earned her second LLM at Penn Law in 2010, having earned an LLM in International Economic Law from Peking University in Beijing in 2007. She also holds a Bachelor of Law from the China University of Political Science & Law and a Master of Science in Justice Studies from Arizona State University. Before coming to Philadelphia, Simin worked as a teaching and research fellow at Arizona State, helping instruct courses on juvenile and immigration justice and conducting research on Chinese labor laws and gender stratification. Through Penn's SJD program, Simin's dissertation topic will be "Will the Green Shoots Blossom from the Withered Wood? Rethinking Reorganization Bankruptcy Regimes of Asia and U.S during Financial Crisis"

Jorge Sánchez-Cordero Grossmann (SJD Candidate)

Jorge Sánchez-Cordero Grossmann earned his LLM in 2006 from Columbia Law School and also holds an MA in Political Science from Columbia University, where he received a Dean's Tuition Scholarship in 2010. He has professional experience as a law clerk at the Mexican Electoral Tribunal and as a university lecturer and research assistant. At Penn Law he is studying the role played by electoral courts in stabilizing democratic practices. The objective of his research is to examine how electoral courts face vital political questions and the jurisprudential tools that emerge as they try to resolve them. His research focus will be on Mexico, where the final decisions in electoral disputes are made by the Mexican Electoral Tribunal, a specialized electoral tribunal that is constitutionally assigned a central role both in the maintenance and promotion of the democratic order, as well as in the shaping of the very political framework through which the electorate exercises its political will.

Rongrong Mu GL'05 (SJD Candidate)

Rongrong Mu is a SJD candidate at University of Pennsylvania Law School. Her research area involves law and finance, capital market and corporate governance. Prior to Penn, Rongrong was an associate in the Beijing office of an international law firm, and a member of the firm's Merger and Acquisition Department. Her practice focused on venture capital /private equity, acquisition and investment transactions. She as well worked at a private equity firm in Washington DC. After earning a LLB from East China University of Political Science and Law, Rongrong worked for two leading Chinese law firms in Shanghai as a corporate attorney. She also holds a LLM from University of Pennsylvania, and is a member of Chinese National Bar Association and New York State Bar Association.

Seung Hyun Nam (SJD Candidate)

Seung Hyun Nam received a Magister Juris from Oxford University in 2007 and a Master of Science in International Law from Korea University in 2009, where she also earned a Bachelor of Law. She worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Seoul and has interned with governmental departments and international organizations such as the UN International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands and the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland. Seung Hyun received a Fulbright Scholarship and will focus her research at Penn Law on enhancing regional enforcement of international criminal law in Asia.

Nizan Packin (SJD Candidate)

Nizan Geslevich Packin is a 2007 graduate of Columbia University's School of Law LLM program and holds a Bachelor of Law and Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Haifa in Israel. Nizan has several years of work experience, including a few years as a Corporate Associate at Skadden Arps in NY, serving as a Law Clerk for the Supreme Court of Israel in Jerusalem, serving as a Student Clerk for federal judge Jack B. Weinstein in the Eastern District of New York, interning at the Federal Trade Commission in New York, and serving as a teaching and research assistant at the University of Haifa in Israel. Nizan takes particular interest in global perspectives on bankruptcy and plans to undertake an SJD project focusing on the regulation of risk and insolvency in the financial markets. Among her research subjects are too-big-to-fail financial institutions, living wills, and securitization.

Hongjin Park GL'11 (SJD Candidate)

Hongjin Park is a 2011 graduate of Penn Law LLM program. He worked as a lawyer and policy coordinator for government agencies of Korea, including Korea Fair Trade Commission, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Prime Minister's Office, and Ministry of Strategy and Finance. For SJD dissertation, his research focus includes "interplay between capital regulation and government backstop for banking system stability after the recent financial crisis," "comparative analysis of bank ownership regulation and financial stability" and other related areas. Hongjin studied as a 2009/10 Hubert H. Humphrey fellow at the Morin Center for Banking and Financial Law at Boston University. He earned his LLB and Master's degree at Seoul National University Law School.

Jessica Peake GL'10 (SJD Candidate)

Jessica Peake earned her second LLM this spring from Penn Law as a Thouron Scholar. She holds her first from the University of Leiden, the Netherlands, in Public International Law. She received her LLB in European, International and Comparative Law in 2007 from the University of Sheffield and also spent time at the University of Hong Kong. She has interned with the Security Council at the UN, for the ICTY Office of the Prosecutor in The Hague and served as a Pro Bono Legal Assistant in Cambodia. For the SJD program she will undertake research on "The Right to a Fair Trial before International Criminal Courts and Tribunals: Jurisprudence in the 21st Century".

Cong Shang GL'08 (SJD Candidate)

Cong Shang graduated from the Penn Law LL.M Program in 2008. Previously, Cong received his first law degree from University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, and an M.A specialized in American Studies from China Foreign Affairs University. His current SJD research project is on the "Historical Origin, Nature, Spirit and Various Manifestations of Fiduciary Law and its Possible Application to China's Legal System". In this project, Cong is adopting an interdisciplinary approach combining law, economics and political science in examining a wide range of legal areas in order to identify underlying ethos and generate interesting insights into the fiduciary law and its adaptations to the Chinese context. Prior to current program, he once worked in a large Chinese bank and a leading Chinese domestic law firm, specialized in project finance, venture capital and M&A. He is admitted to the Chinese Bar. Cong is also a leading international conference interpreter in China.

Konstantinos Stylianou (SJD Candidate)

Konstantinos Stylianou earned an LLM in Law, Science and Technology Specialization this spring from Harvard Law School, where he studied as a Fulbright Scholar. He is also a graduate of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece, where he pursued his Master's Degree in International and European Law and completed coursework on internet law and intellectual property. Konstantinos has worked at the Council of Europe (European Audiovisual Observatory), and has served as a legal counsel for YouthMedia, a nonprofit based in Berlin. At Penn, he hopes to undertake a project entitled, "Next-generation Networks: Competition, Innovation, and the Role of the Regulatory Authorities."

Lorianne Updike Toler (SJD Candidate)

Lorianne Updike Toler graduated in 2005, magna cum laude, from Brigham Young University's J. Reuben Clark Law School.  While there, she taught undergraduate law courses and founded The Constitutional Sources Project in Washington, DC.  She headed ConSource as president and executive director till 2009, when she began studies at Cambridge and Oxford in History, graduating with an MSt in US History in 2010.  Lorianne has published several articles on constitutional legal history and writes frequently for various online and print news sources, including blogging at www.constitutionathomeandabroad.blogspot.com. Her dissertation will focus on James Wilson and comparative constitutional legal history in proposing an international procedural standard for constitution-creation.  While writing her dissertation, Lorianne has resumed responsibilities for legal and external affairs as president of ConSource.

Xiaochuan Weng (SJD Candidate)

Xiaochuan Weng is a 2009 graduate and Dean Scholarship receiver of the Penn Law LLM program. In 2003, Xiaochuan graduated magna cum laude from the East China University of Politics and Law (ECUPL). He returned to teach at ECUPL from 2003-2008 as an Assistant Professor, before pursuing two LLMs through the National University of Singapore and Penn Law. Xiaochuan has several publications to his name, including Fordham International Law Journal (FILJ) and, through the SJD program, will be undertaking research on "Fiduciary Duties in Control Transactions - A Comparative Perspective of American and Chinese Corporate Law." Additionally, he is an Associate Research Fellow at ECUPL while completing his dissertation.