Cristina M. Rodríguez, the Sol and Lillian Goldman Dean and Professor of Law at Yale Law School, is the 2026 recipient of the Hispanic National Bar Foundation’s Academic Leadership Award. This is the second time Professor Rodríguez has been honored by the foundation for her academic contributions to the legal field.
Professor Rodríguez has 25 years of experience in law and academia. A Yale faculty member since 2013, she was named dean of Yale Law School earlier this year. She also serves as co-faculty director of the Ludwig Program in Public Sector Leadership. Professor Rodríguez’s scholarship centers on constitutional law and theory, administrative law and process, and immigration law and policy. She is the author of The President and Immigration Law (Oxford University Press, 2020), which explores two centuries of presidential influence on American immigration policy.
Professor Rodríguez received her bachelor’s degree and juris doctorate from Yale and her master’s degree in history from the University of Oxford in England. Before coming to Yale, she taught at the New York University School of Law.