Michael Heise's research focuses on bridging empirical methodologies and legal theory. He earned his A.B. from Stanford University, J.D. from the University of Chicago, and Ph.D. from Northwestern University, and was admitted to the Illinois Bar in 1987. Before entering academia in 1994 as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Indiana University School of Law, he served as Senior Legal Counsel to the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education and later as Deputy Chief of Staff to the U.S. Secretary of Education. Heise became an Assistant Professor in 1995, an Associate Professor in 1999 at Case Western Reserve University, and joined Cornell Law School as a Professor of Law in 2003. He has authored or co-authored a hundred scholarly articles, and his research and teaching areas include torts, education policy, insurance, constitutional law, and empirical methods. He has co-edited the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies since 2005 and is the Founding Director of the Society for Empirical Legal Studies.