Dr. Roseanna Sommers

Biography

Roseanna Sommers is a Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School. Her teaching and research interests focus on the dynamics between legal systems and human behavior, particularly how the law misinterprets human actions and vice versa. She explores critical questions surrounding the concepts of voluntary action and the factors that can interfere with autonomy, including coercion, deception, and manipulation. Her research, published in respected peer-reviewed journals like Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Psychological Science, aims to integrate insights from social cognitive sciences into legal doctrine. Sommers previously taught at the University of Chicago Law School as a Harry A. Bigelow Teaching Fellow. She founded and directs the Psychology Law Studies (PALS) Lab, conducting original research at the intersection of psychology and law and co-organizes the Chicago/Michigan PALS speaker series in collaboration with the University of Chicago Law School.

Research Interests