Sean B. Seymore, Associate Professor of Law, has received a secondary appointment as Associate Professor of Chemistry in Vanderbilt University’s Department of Chemistry, effective January 1. The appointment was announced by Carolyn Dever, Dean of the College of Arts & Science at Vanderbilt.
Professor Seymore, whose research focuses on how patent law should advance in response to scientific advances, joined Vanderbilt’s law faculty in fall 2010. He holds a Ph.D. in chemistry and a J.D. from the University of Notre Dame and earned his M.S. in chemistry at the Georgia Institute of Technology and his B.S. in chemistry at the University of Tennessee, which he attended as a Tennessee Scholar. His dissertation, Polar Effects in Metal-Mediated Nitrogen and Oxygen Atom Transfer, led to four peer-reviewed publications in the journal Inorganic Chemistry, including a cover article. He is currently working on a book that addresses the role of failure and unexpected results in chemical research.
Professor Seymore practiced patent law with Foley Haag in Boston and served on the law faculty at Washington & Lee University before joining Vanderbilt’s law faculty. “Vanderbilt has placed a major emphasis on interdisciplinary research, and I look forward to the opportunity to pursue projects that draw on my background in chemical research as well as law, “ Professor Seymore said. “Vanderbilt’s Department of Chemistry is already closely aligned with Vanderbilt’s schools of Medicine and Engineering and its departments of Biological Sciences and Physics, and I’m pleased to have the opportunity to extend the department’s reach into the area of law.”
Before earning his law degree, Professor Seymore held academic appointments in chemistry at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and Rowan University and was a Visiting Scientist at Indiana University Bloomington. He is an active member of the American Chemical Society (ACS), and currently serves on the executive committee for the Division of Chemistry and the Law. He is also engaged with the Chemical Heritage Foundation, a non-profit organization whose mission is to foster an understanding or chemistry’s impact on society.
“Sean Seymore is an outstanding addition to our law faculty, and I’m confident he’ll make significant contributions to Vanderbilt’s Department of Chemistry,” Dean Chris Guthrie said. “His expertise in inorganic chemistry and patent law gives him a unique vantage point for both disciplines.”
Vanderbilt’s law faculty also includes members who hold primary or secondary appointments in the Departments of Biology, Psychiatry, Political Science, Economics, Philosophy and Religion and in the School of Medicine and the Owen Graduate School of Management in addition to their appointments at the School of Law.
