Jennifer Mnookin

Born in 1967 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Jennifer Mnookin is the daughter of Dale Mnookin and Robert Mnookin, the Samuel Williston Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.^[4] She grew up in Berkeley and Palo Alto, California. For college she returned to Cambridge, Massachusetts to attend Harvard College, where she became an editor for The Harvard Crimson and earned her Bachelor of Arts in 1988.^[5] She received her J.D. from Yale Law School in 1995 and a Ph.D. in the history and sociology of science and technology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1999.^[6]

From 1998 to 2005, Mnookin was on the faculty of the University of Virginia School of Law, with one year (2002–03) spent as a visiting professor at Harvard Law School. She joined the faculty of UCLA Law in 2005, where she then served as vice dean for faculty and research from 2007–09, vice dean for external appointments and intellectual life from 2012–13, and dean from 2013-2022. On April 23, 2020, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.^[7] On May 16, 2022, the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents announced they had unanimously chosen Mnookin to be the 30th chancellor of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She took office on August 4, 2022.^[8]

Her scholarship focuses on the interconnections between evidence, science and technology, and legal and cultural ideas about proof and persuasion. She has written on topics ranging from the history of photographic evidence to the complexities of the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment with respect to expert evidence. She is a co-author of The New Wigmore, A Treatise on Evidence: Expert Evidence.^[9] Much of her work has focused on the problems of forensic science evidence, especially pattern identification evidence like latent fingerprint identification.^[6]

Her research on forensic science was cited extensively by the National Academy of Sciences' 2009 report.^[10] She is a former member of the National Academy of Science's Committee on Science, Technology and the Law^[11] and is on the advisory board of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.^[12] She was the primary investigator for a National Institute of Justice project that sought to develop objective metrics for measuring the difficulty of fingerprint comparisons.^[13] Her work on the Confrontation Clause was cited and discussed by the Supreme Court of the United States in Williams v. Illinois (2012).^[14] In 2016, she co-chaired an advisory group to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, which issued a report on the reliability of forensic science used in the courtroom.^[15][16]

Mnookin co-chaired a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) study assessing the current capabilities, future possibilities, societal implications, and governance of facial recognition technologies. In January 2024, NASEM published the study group’s report,^[17] which called for the federal government to take action addressing privacy, equity and civil liberties concerns in light of facial recognition technology capabilities that have outpaced laws and regulations.

As Chancellor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Mnookin has focused on student access, expanding research and education, and championing pluralism and civil dialogue. Early in her tenure, Mnookin introduced initiatives to cover full financial need and increase access to UW–Madison for Wisconsin-resident students, including Bucky’s Pell Pathway for Pell grant recipients ^[18]and the Wisconsin Tribal Educational Promise Program ^[19] for Wisconsin residents who are enrolled members of federally recognized Wisconsin Indian tribes.  

Bucky’s Pell Pathway^[20] is a program in which the university pledges to meet the full financial need for four years for new first-year Wisconsin resident students who qualify for Pell Grants. Transfer students from Wisconsin meeting the same criteria receive two years of full-need funding. In its first two years, the program has been awarded to about 4,000 students.

In 2024^[21], 22% of Wisconsin resident undergraduate students were covered by either Bucky’s Tuition Promise (which ensures full coverage of tuition and fees for students with family incomes under $65K) or Bucky’s Pell Pathway. These programs are funded with institutional dollars and private gifts at no cost to taxpayers.

In December 2023, Mnookin introduced the Wisconsin Tribal Educational Promise Program^[22], which provides financial support to cover the full cost of pursuing a bachelor’s degrees as well as degrees in medicine and law for Wisconsin residents who are enrolled members of federally recognized Wisconsin Indian tribes.

In 2023-24 more than 66% of bachelor’s degree recipients had no student loan debt, the highest debt-free percentage in the last 10 years. Of those who had student loan debt, the average was $27,083.

Mnookin has championed open, civil dialog and pluralism on campus, encouraging students to engage across difference to expand their understanding of each other and the broader world. In 2023, she supported a pilot program, Deliberation Dinners, which provides undergraduates the opportunity to discuss and debate important political and social issues over monthly dinners with ideologically and demographically diverse peers, along with Badger Dialogues, gatherings of students from different identity groups to provide direct feedback. In addition, she hosts a regular series of conversations called Chats with the Chancellor, bringing together students from across campus to discuss the student experience at UW-Madison, and to connect across backgrounds, disciplines and interests.

In February 2024, Mnookin launched Wisconsin RISE (Research, Innovation, and Scholarly Excellence), a cross-campus initiative to expand the faculty and create interdisciplinary teams around complex challenges affecting Wisconsin and the world.^[23] The program’s focus is research and education in three areas: artificial intelligence (RISE-AI), sustainability and resilience (RISE-EARTH) and improving wellbeing across the healthspan (RISE-THRIVE).

RISE-EARTH complements a campuswide sustainability initiative Mnookin announced in 2024^[24] that launched a Sustainability Research Hub and sets goals including net-zero emissions by 2048; zero waste campus by 2040; and expanding educational opportunities in sustainability.

RISE-THRIVE (for Transforming the Healthspan through Research, InnoVation, and Education) brings multidisciplinary researchers together to work on ‘healthspan’ with a focus on both immunology (building human defenses against illness and infection) and the many other socioeconomic and psychological variables that impact healthy aging. During Mnookin’s tenure, the university has been designated as a national center for innovation and economic prosperity^[25].

On April 29, 2024, students and community members established an encampment on Library Mall to protest the ongoing war in Gaza.^[26] Mnookin designated campus leaders to meet with protest leaders and discuss demands soon after the encampment was established and pledged to meet with protesters personally when the tents, which were in violation of state law,^[27] were removed.^[28]

Campus leaders asked protesters multiple times^[29] over several days to bring their demonstration into conformity with the law, which prohibits camping on UW grounds. Protesters were also given several opportunities to voluntarily leave the encampment with their belongings and avoid consequences. Campus leaders had described potential consequences immediately before^[30] and after^[31] the encampment was erected.

On May 1, 2024, Mnookin authorized campus police to dismantle the encampment.^[32] Campus police were assisted by the Madison Police Department, the Dane County Sheriff's Office, and Wisconsin State Patrol. The removal of the encampment resulted in 34 arrests of students, professors and community members. Most protestors were released without citation, though four were booked at the county jail.^[33] The tactic garnered several responses. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester praised Mnookin on X, "for doing the right thing by enforcing campus policies and standing up to the unruly mob."^[33] Others condemned the police presence. Madison Alderman MGR Govindarajan responded by saying that the "actions seen this morning were beyond what was necessary. I’ve heard of both students and community members bleeding, clothes being torn, with safety being just an afterthought.” Govindarajan represents the UW campus area on City Council.

Dahlia Saba, of the UW-Madison Students for Justice in Palestine, responded to the arrests with the following words, as quoted in The Capital Times:

“We will be prepared to continue fighting for what we believe, which is that UW-Madison should divest from apartheid in Israel... It’s shameful that the University of Wisconsin-Madison would rather use violence against their community, against their students, against their faculty, against their staff, than negotiate with us in good faith.”^[33]

Following the arrests, protesters reinstated the camp and additional in-person negotiations commenced between students and campus administration. Mnookin met with student protest leaders on May 2,^[34] and a settlement was reached to end the encampment on May 10^[35] after several rounds of negotiations.

The terms of the settlement with Mnookin stated that SJP would dismantle the encampment and pledge not to disrupt UW-Madison activities provided a meeting could be held with representatives of the Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association and the Universities of Wisconsin leadership and the process was ongoing as of fall 2024.

Mnookin married Joshua Foa Dienstag,^[36] a professor of political science and law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in 1996. They have two children, Sophia and Isaac.^[37]