Jeannie Suk Gersen (born 1973) is an American legal scholar at Harvard Law School. She became the first Asian American woman awarded tenure at Harvard Law School in 2010.

Biography

Suk attended Hunter College High School, graduating in 1991. In 1995, Suk received her B.A. in literature from Yale University, and a D.Phil at St Hugh's College, Oxford, in 1999, as a Marshall Scholar. In 2002, she graduated with a J.D. degree from Harvard Law School. After law school, she clerked for Judge Harry T. Edwards of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and Justice David Souter of the U.S. Supreme Court during the 2003 term. She then worked as a prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. In 2006, Suk became an assistant professor at Harvard Law School, making her the second woman of minority background to join the faculty (after Lani Guinier). In 2010, Suk was granted tenure; she was the first Asian American woman awarded tenure in the law school's history. She is currently the John H. Watson, Jr. Professor of Law.

Awards

She was named one of the "Best Lawyers Under 40" by the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association and a "Top Woman of the Law" by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. She was awarded the prestigious Barry Prize for Distinguished Intellectual Achievement by the American Academy of Sciences and Letters in 2024.

Books

Essays and reporting

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Personal life

In 1999, Suk married Harvard Law School Professor Noah Feldman with whom she has two children. Her second marriage is to Sidley Austin Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, Jacob E. Gersen.