Paul H. Edelman

Professor of Mathematics Professor of Law
Voice: (615) 322-0990
Fax: (615) 322-6631
Email: paul.edelman@vanderbilt.edu
Office: Room 269
View curriculum vitae (.pdf)
Links
Research Interest(s)
Social choice, measuring representation, measuring voting power, law and economics, corporations
Education
Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
B.A. Swarthmore College
Biography
Paul Edelman holds a joint appointment in Vanderbilt's Department of Mathematics and the law school. A distinguished mathematician whose scholarship in mathematics has focused on combinatorics, Professor Edelman's work pertaining to the law includes articles on judicial decision making, the electoral vote system, public choice and corporations. Before joining Vanderbilt's faculty, Professor Edelman taught at the University of Minnesota, Carnegie-Mellon University and the University of Pennsylvania.
Representative Publications
Articles
"The Institutional Dimension of Election Design," 153 Public Choice 287 (2012)
“Selectica Resets the Trigger on the Poison Pill: Where Should the Delaware Courts Go Next?” 87 Indiana Law Journal 1087 (2012) (with Randall Thomas)
“Consensus, Disorder and Ideology on the Supreme Court” 9 Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 129 (2012) (with David Klein and Stefanie Lindquist)
"The Inverse Banzhaf Problem," 34 Social Choice and Welfare 371 (2010) (with Noga Alon)
"Corporate Voting," 62 Vanderbilt Law Review 129 (2009) (with Robert Thompson)
"Mr. Sunstein’s Neighborhood: Won’t You Be Our Co-author?", The Green Bag Almanac and Reader (2009) (with Tracey George)
"Measuring Deviations from Expected Voting Patterns on Collegial Courts," 5 Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 821 (2008) (With D. Klein and S. Lindquist)
"The Most Dangerous Justice Rides into the Sunset," 24 Constitutional Commentary 299 (2007) (with Jim Chen)
"What Are We Comparing in Comparative Negligence?" 85 Washington University Law Review 73 (2007)
"Getting the Math Right: Why California Has Too Many Seats in the House of Representatives," 59 Vanderbilt Law Review 297 (2006)
Presentations
The Apportionment of the US Congress in the 1920’s—The Role of Social Choice in Political Controversies, Workshop on Electoral Methods, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, May, 2011.
Mathematics and the Analysis of Fairness in Political Processes, Panel, AAAS Annual Meeting, San Diego, February, 2010
Math for America, New York, workshop, October, 2009
Should the Electoral College Stay, Be Reformed, or Be Abolished?, Panel, INFORMS, Washington, D.C., (October 2008)
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