Nanasi, Natalie

Natalie Nanasi is an Assistant Professor of Law and the Director of the Judge Elmo B. Hunter Legal Center for Victims of Crimes Against Women at SMU Dedman School of Law. Her work involves supervising students' representation of survivors of gender-based violence in a broad range of legal matters. The Hunter Center also engages in systemic advocacy and policy work to support survivors of domestic violence, sexual abuse and human trafficking.

Prior to arriving at SMU, Professor Nanasi was a Practitioner-in-Residence and the Director of the Domestic Violence Clinic at American University, Washington College of Law (WCL). Before joining the faculty at WCL, Professor Nanasi was the Senior Immigration Attorney and Pro Bono Coordinator at the Tahirih Justice Center, where she represented immigrant women and girls fleeing human rights abuses such as female genital mutilation, domestic and sexual violence, forced marriage and honor crimes. She also served as counsel in the landmark asylum case of Matter of A-T- and as an Equal Justice Works Fellow from 2007-2009, with a focus on the U visa. Prior to her work at Tahirih, Professor Nanasi was a law clerk to the Honorable Lynn Leibovitz of the District of Columbia Superior Court.

Professor Nanasi researches and writes at the intersection of immigration, gender and feminist legal theory. Her scholarship is has appeared in numerous journals and law reviews, including the Ohio State Law Journal, Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, Temple Law Review, and Columbia Journal of Gender and Law.

Professor Nanasi received her J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center, where she earned an Equal Justice Foundation fellowship for her work at the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Center in New Delhi, India and assisted in representation of HIV-positive immigrants at Whitman Walker Clinic Legal Services. Prior to her legal career, Professor Nanasi was a rape crisis counselor and supported single teenage mothers at a transitional residence facility in Boston.