North Carolina Central University School of Law has named Sonia M. Gipson Rankin interim associate dean for technology and innovation.
Gipson Rankin, who joined the NCCU School of Law faculty in August, teaches Torts I and leads the law school’s Technology Law and Policy Center. She brings extensive experience at the intersection of law, technology and higher education, as well as nine years of academic administrative leadership.
Before joining NCCU Law, Gipson Rankin was a professor of law at the University of New Mexico School of Law . She previously served six years as associate dean of University College and three years as associate director of the Africana Studies Program at University of New Mexico.
With academic training in both computer science and law, Gipson Rankin’s work focuses on technology, artificial intelligence and their implications for the legal profession and justice system. She advises judges and courts at the state, federal, tribal and international levels and serves as co-principal investigator on a National Science Foundation grant supporting the AI Research Institute on Interaction for AI Assistants.
Gipson Rankin is an American Bar Foundation fellow and previously served as Region X director of the National Bar Association. She also co-founded the UNM Algorithmic Justice Project and the UNM-Santa Fe Institute Working Group on Algorithmic Justice.
Her scholarship has appeared in the Oxford Handbook on AI and Criminal Law, Nature Reviews Electrical Engineering and NYU Law Review Online, with forthcoming work in the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law and Family Law Quarterly.
Gipson Rankin earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Morgan State University and a Juris Doctor from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She is a native of New Jersey.
“Even in the short time she has been part of our community, I have tremendous confidence that Interim Associate Dean Gipson Rankin will bring new and innovative approaches to expanding the impact and reach of the Technology Law and Policy Center,” Dean Joseph Grant said. “We have engaged thoughtful and visionary conversations about the future growth and integration of artificial intelligence and technology into the daily practice of law.”
Gipson Rankin said she looks forward to building upon the foundation established by the center’s inaugural associate dean, April Dawson, and working with Interim Executive Director Miriam Johnson to advance its mission.
“Together, we are committed to carrying the center’s mission forward, training tech-conscious lawyers, building the next generation of tech law experts and shaping policy toward just and effective technology law,” Gipson Rankin said.