Meet Our New Faculty, Part I

We are pleased to introduce three of the 10 new faculty members joining Texas Law during the 2025–26 academic year. To give each scholar’s work the attention it deserves, we are presenting their stories in three installments over the next two weeks.  

Texas Law is welcoming a record 10 new teachers and scholars to its faculty for the coming school year, capping off a busy and productive hiring campaign. 

We’re adding to our depth, range, and excellence in timely and important areas of the law. This is fantastic for everybody—especially our students.

Dean Bobby Chesney

“Our world-class faculty is getting even bigger and better this year,” says Dean Bobby Chesney. “We’re adding to our depth, range, and excellence in timely and important areas of the law. This is fantastic for everybody—especially our students.” 

The newest faculty members include six people joining the research faculty, with four senior scholars and two early-career rising stars; two new lecturers, one joining from the adjunct ranks and one who was previously a visiting instructor; and two academic fellows. 

“This is an incredible variety of talents,” says Melissa Wasserman, Texas Law’s associate dean for research. “Each one is doing important work that will enrich our learning and research environment.”  

Professors Rachel Rebouché and Paul Gugliuzza both come to Texas Law from Temple University Beasley School of Law, where Rebouché served as dean from 2022 until this spring. Professor Avihay Dorfman arrives in Austin from the University of Tel Aviv’s Buchmann School of Law. Professor Aaron Nielson joins the faculty from Brigham Young University and from his service as Texas solicitor general, a role he held from 2023 until this June. 

Each one is doing important work that will enrich our learning and research environment.

Melissa Wasserman,
associate dean for research

Susan Yorke and Alexander Zhang each come to the Forty Acres as assistant professors. Yorke was most recently a lecturer at Stanford Law School, while Zhang was at Yale Law School. 

Texas Law’s newest lecturers are no strangers to the law school. Christopher Kulander taught last year as a visiting lecturer, making the commute from Houston, where he was previously a professor at the South Texas College of Law. He is now a senior lecturer. Lauren Tanner Bradley not only taught as an adjunct last year, but she is also an alumna, having earned her Juris Doctor as a member of the Class of 2008. 

Texas Law is also welcoming two new fellows. Kevin Frazier is the inaugural AI Innovation Fellow and he is directing the school’s new AI Innovation and Law Program. He was previously an assistant professor at Miami’s St. Thomas University College of Law. Prachi Mehta is the first awardee of Texas Law’s relaunched Academic Fellows program, supporting emerging scholars aspiring to join the legal academy. She was previously a litigator in California.  

Few law school professors arrive with the breadth and depth of real-world experience of Aaron Nielson. He comes to Austin from Brigham Young University’s J. Reuben Clark Law School—and, more recently, a two-year term as Texas’s solicitor general.  

An expert in administrative law and federal courts, Nielson will teach civil procedure this fall. 

In addition to his academic work, Nielson spent 13 years in the Washington, D.C., office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP, where he was an appellate and antitrust partner. He will continue a role with the firm while teaching at Texas Law. 

Nielson frequently comments on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and is often quoted in national publications. He chairs the Administrative and Management Committee of the Administrative Conference of the United States and serves on the Council of the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice. In 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court appointed him to defend the constitutionality of a federal agency. 

He earned his Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School and an LL.M. from the University of Cambridge, focusing on institutions regulating global competition and commerce. He holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and political science from the University of Pennsylvania. After law school, he clerked for Justice Samuel Alito of the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Janice Rogers Brown of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. 

Nielson’s most recent scholarship includes “Article II and the Federal Reserve,” in the Cornell Law Review, and “Saving Agency Adjudication,” in the Texas Law Review. 

A leading scholar in reproductive health law and family law, Rachel Rebouché comes to Texas Law after four years as the dean of the Temple University Beasley School of Law.  Previously, she was the associate dean for research there, as well as a faculty fellow at Temple’s Center for Public Health Law Research. 

It’s a homecoming for Rebouché, who was born in Texas and earned her bachelor’s from San Antonio’s Trinity University. “I am thrilled to return home and join the state’s flagship university,” says Rebouché. “It’s one of the best law schools in the country.” 

Rebouché is the author or editor of multiple books, articles, and essays, including casebooks on family law. She has served as a co-investigator on two grant-funded research projects related to reproductive health, one housed at the Emory University Rollins School of Public Health and another funded by the World Health Organization.  

Rebouché received her Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School and an LL.M. from Queen’s University, Belfast. Prior to law school, she worked as a researcher for the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission and the Human Rights Centre at Queen’s University. After law school, Rebouché clerked for Justice Kate O’Regan on the Constitutional Court of South Africa and practiced law in Washington, D.C., serving as associate director of adolescent health programs at the National Partnership for Women & Families and as a Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellow at the National Women’s Law Center. 

Rebouché will teach contracts, as well as courses in health care law.  

Alexander Zhang is a historian of law, politics, and culture in the United States as well as a theorist of legislation, statutory interpretation, and race. He will teach legislation and statutory interpretation, contracts for 1Ls, and a seminar on Asian Americans and the law.  

“I intend to make it clear from day one that I care about my students,” says Zhang. “I want to be the reason a law student never has to ask, ‘How do you get a professor to care about you?’” 

Zhang is also eager to “build Texas Law into a national leader in the field of legislation and to serve students who are deeply eager to engage with state legal communities.” 

An Arkansas native, Zhang has his degrees from Yale University, including his Juris Doctor, as well as his bachelor’s and master’s. He also holds a Master of Philosophy degree and is currently a doctoral candidate in Yale’s history department. After law school, he clerked for Chief Judge David J. Barron of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit. His scholarship has appeared in the Yale Law Journal, NYU Law Review, and Duke Law Journal. 

Meet Our New Faculty Series

Part I — Meet Professors Aaron Nielson and Rachel Rebouché, and Assistant Professor Alexander Zhang

Part II — Meet Professor Paul Gugliuzza, Assistant Professor Susan Yorke, and Fellow Kevin Frazier

Part III — Meet Professor Avihay Dorfman, Senior Lecturer Christopher Kulander, and Lecturer Lauren Tanner Bradley