Professor Karen Porter to Lead New Inclusion and Diversity Initiative

Updated 02/18/2020

Professor Karen Porter, a longtime member of the Brooklyn Law School faculty, has been named the inaugural Arthur Pinto & Stephen Bohlen Associate Dean for Inclusion and Diversity. In this role, supported by a major gift from Professor Emeritus Arthur Pinto, she will oversee and coordinate the Law School’s efforts to ensure a diverse and inclusive environment.

“I love our students and am very excited to have the opportunity to work with them, the faculty, staff, alumni, and administration to foster a more diverse, inclusive, and welcoming community,” said Porter.

This position will touch on all stages of the educational life cycle: developing pipeline programs that will ensure a broad and diverse applicant pool; engaging in outreach that will encourage admitted applicants to enroll; supporting the student experience, on an individual and group level; and pursuing employment partnerships and opportunities that will benefit graduates while diversifying the world of legal practice.

“I look forward to working with Karen in this new capacity,” said Dean Michael T. Cahill. “I am confident that she will, as ever, serve the school and our students with skill and devotion.”

Porter will continue to teach and lead Brooklyn Law School’s initiatives in health law. She is the executive director of the Law School’s Center for Health, Science, & Public Policy and supervises the Center’s fellowship program, as well as the Health Law externship and practicum programs and the Health Law Clinic.

Porter joined the Law School in 2002. Prior to teaching, she held a post-doctoral fellowship at Montefiore Medical Center/The Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Department of Epidemiology and Social Medicine. Her background also includes work as a senior policy analyst and staff counsel to the National Commission on AIDS. She has taught courses at Washington University in St. Louis School of Law on law and medicine, and AIDS and the law, and she has authored numerous publications related to AIDS policy.