Joni Hersch and W. Kip Viscusi, co-directors of the Ph.D. Program in Law & Economics at Vanderbilt Law School, have announced that two program graduates were promoted with tenure during the 2022-23 academic year.
Caroline Cecot, J.D./Ph.D. ‘14, has been promoted with tenure to Associate Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, where she teaches administrative law, environmental law, and torts. Cecot’s scholarship focuses on environmental and energy law and regulation, administrative law, and agency practice of cost-benefit analysis, with her work often applying her expertise in law and economics to evolving issues in these areas. Before joining the faculty at George Mason University, she clerked for Judge Raymond J. Lohier Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. She was also a Legal Fellow at the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law, where she authored amicus curiae briefs and submitted comments on environmental and regulatory issues. Cecot is an affiliated scholar at the Atlantic Council, the C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State, the Institute for Policy Integrity, and the Technology Policy Institute. She has also served on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Science Advisory Board’s Economic Guidelines Review Panel.
Benjamin J. McMichael, J.D./Ph.D. ‘15, has been promoted with tenure to Professor of Law at The University of Alabama School of Law, where he teaches health law, law and economics, and torts. Before joining the faculty at The University of Alabama, McMichael completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management, where he taught healthcare law and economics. Prior to his fellowship, he served as a law clerk to Judge Carolyn Dineen King on the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. McMichael’s research is interdisciplinary, relying on empirical methods developed in the social sciences—particularly economics—to generate new insights into the ways in which the law influences the provision of healthcare. His empirical research has also examined the effects of various state and federal reforms on punitive damages awards.