Rutgers Law School was well-represented at Rutgers University’s Big Ideas Symposium, held at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. The Big Ideas initiative is a university-wide effort to showcase transformational ideas that could have global impacts proposed by faculty throughout the university. Rutgers Law had two of the 40 proposals that were chosen from among 200 submissions for presentation at the symposium.

Co-Dean David Lopez and Professor Patrick Shafto, the Henry Rutgers Term Chair in Data Science, and Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science, presented on a project titled Algorithms, Justice, and Opportunity that examines artificial intelligence and machine learning and issues of bias to make sure the technologies are fair and just to people of all ethnicities.

Associate Dean Jill Friedman, for Pro Bono and Public Interest, and Rutgers Law Professor Laura Cohen, Director of the Criminal and Youth Justice Clinic, spoke about the Rutgers Innocence Project, an interdisciplinary project that seeks to free imprisoned New Jersey residents who have been convicted based on faulty evidence or law enforcement misconduct, but who are innocent. The university will eventually move forward with 8–12 ideas and help secure funding for them. 

To read more information, visit the Rutgers Big Ideas website.