2024-2025 Distinguished Policy Fellows

Through the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School’s Leo Model Foundation Government and Public Affairs Initiative, leading policy and government experts enrich the intellectual life of our community by sharing their expertise and perspectives on law and policy with students, faculty, and staff. The Initiative’s visiting fellows program brings current and former government officials, policy makers, lawyers, and other high-level leaders to campus to deliver guest lectures, collaborate with faculty, and engage in career conversations with students.

For the 2024-25 academic year, Penn Carey Law will host three Distinguished Policy Fellows: Walter Shaub and Dr. Heath P. Tarbert L’01, SJD’02 in fall 2024 and Kimberly M. Foxx in spring 2025.

Previous Distinguished Policy Fellows include Richard Cordray, first Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB); Charles H. Ramsey, former Philadelphia Police Commissioner; and Kara Stein, Public Company Accounting Oversight Board Member, as well as high-level White House officials and members of Congress. The program attracts those who have served at the highest levels of their governmental organizations, such as by holding elected office or by being appointed to the very top of their government agencies. In addition, some of the nation’s most accomplished lawyers serving at all levels of government visit the Law School as Policy Fellows under the program.

Kimberly M. Foxx

Foxx is the first Black woman to lead the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office—the second-largest prosecutor’s office in the country. Foxx took office on December 1, 2016, with a vision for transforming the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office into a fairer, more forward-thinking agency focused on rebuilding public trust, promoting transparency, and being proactive in making all communities safe. She was elected to a second term in 2020.

Kimberly M. FoxxFoxx serves on the Board of Penn Carey Law’s Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice.

As Cook County State’s Attorney, Foxx has undertaken substantial criminal justice reforms focused on public safety and equity. She has revamped the office’s Conviction Integrity Unit, resulting in overturned convictions in nearly 250 cases, including the first-ever mass exoneration in Cook County for 15 men whose convictions stemmed from misconduct by a Chicago police officer.

With the goal of making Cook County the most transparent prosecutor’s office in the country, in 2018, Foxx became the first and only prosecutor in the country to make felony case-level data available to the public. The open data portal provides unprecedented access and transparency into the work of a prosecutor’s office, work that is grounded in data and evidence.

Foxx served as an Assistant State’s Attorney for 12 years and was also a guardian ad litem, where she worked as an attorney advocating for children navigating the child welfare system. Prior to being elected State’s Attorney, she served as Chief of Staff for the Cook County Board President, where she was the lead architect of the county’s criminal justice reform agenda to address racial disparities in the criminal and juvenile justice systems.

A noted national speaker and lecturer on social justice issues, Foxx has served on various panels, including the Illinois Judicial Council and Cook County’s COVID Reopening Task Force and has collaborated with other elected prosecutors to stand against the criminalization of abortions following the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

A national leader in criminal justice reforms, Foxx has been published in two anthologies, Progressive Prosecution: Race and Reform in Criminal Justice and Change from Within: Reimagining the 21st Century Prosecutor, in which she discusses the inequities in the criminal justice system and the role that prosecutors’ offices can affect change and outcomes for offenders.

Walter Shaub

Shaub has advocated for integrity and accountability in government throughout his career in public service. He focuses on preventing abuses of government power and resources, reforming government ethics systems, strengthening institutions that guard democracy, and holding government officials accountable to the public they serve.

Walter ShaubShaub served for four and a half years as the presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed Director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics (OGE). In that role, he was a member of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency and the Council’s Integrity Committee. Shaub served in OGE for nearly 14 years as a staff attorney, supervisory attorney, deputy general counsel, and director. Before that, he served in the general counsel offices of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Outside government, he worked for the law firm of Shaw, Bransford, Veilleux & Roth, P.C., and as a CNN contributor. He has served in key roles with nonprofit government watchdogs, including the Campaign Legal Center, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, and the Project On Government Oversight. Shaub now works as an independent contractor for organizations whose missions align with his values.

Over the course of his career, Staub’s dedication to public service has been widely recognized with numerous awards, including: 2019 Paul H. Douglas Award for Ethics in Government, presented by the University of Illinois System; 2018 Nesta Gallas Award for Exemplary Professional Service in Public Service, presented by the American Society for Public Administration; and 2018 Distinguished Alumni Award, presented by the James Madison University. He delivered the 2020 Elson Ethics Lecture to St. George’s House of Windsor Castle in the United Kingdom.

Dr. Heath P. Tarbert L’01, SJD’02

Tarbert is the former Chair of the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission and Chief Legal Officer and Head of Corporate Affairs at Circle, a global financial technology firm that enables businesses of all sizes to harness the power of stablecoins and public blockchains for payments and commerce.

Dr. Heath Tarbert L'01, SJD'02Tarbert serves as a Lecturer in Law at Penn Carey Law, where he has taught “International Finance.” He will also participate in Penn’s Robert A. Fox Leadership Program during his tenure as a Distinguished Policy Fellow.

Prior to joining Circle, Tarbert was Chief Legal Officer of Citadel Securities, where he was responsible for the firm’s global legal, compliance, surveillance, and regulatory affairs functions.

Tarbert previously served as the 14th Chairman and Chief Executive of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Vice Chairman of the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO), and a voting member of the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC).

Before the CFTC, Tarbert was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for International Markets and Development, concurrently serving as G-7/G-20 Deputy Finance Minister, a member of the Financial Stability Board (FSB), and U.S. Executive Director of the World Bank Group. Earlier in his career, Tarbert served as a U.S. Supreme Court law clerk, Associate White House Counsel, Special Counsel to the Senate Banking Committee, and a partner at two international law firms.

Tarbert is the recipient of several public service awards including the Alexander Hamilton Award (the Department of the Treasury’s highest honor), the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service, and the Freedom of the City of London for strengthening financial regulatory relations between the United States and United Kingdom.

He is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Public Administration, and an elected member of the American Law Institute. Tarbert is also a Fellow of the 2021 Class of the Finance Leaders Fellowship of the Aspen Institute and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.

A graduate of Penn Carey Law, he was elected Class President and served as a Senior Editor of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. Upon graduation, Tarbert was awarded the Oscar Bregman Prize for excellence in the field of Business Law, and he received the U.S.-UK Thouron Award to pursue the study of comparative law at Oxford University.

Learn more about the Leo Model Foundation Government and Public Affairs Initiative.