Kristen Carpenter
Council Tree Professor of Law, University of Colorado Law School and Expert from North America, Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, United Nations
Council Tree Professor of Law, University of Colorado Law School and Expert from North America, Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, United Nations
Kristen Carpenter is the Council Tree Professor of Law at the University of Colorado Law School. Professor Carpenter also serves on the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as its member from North America. She is a graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School.
At Colorado Law, Professor Carpenter teaches and writes in the areas of Property, Cultural Property, American Indian Law, and Indigenous Peoples in International Law. She has published several books and legal treatises on these topics, and her articles appear in leading law reviews. Professor Carpenter has been awarded the Provost's Award for Faculty Achievement and the Outstanding New Faculty Award. She served as a director of the American Indian Law Program from 2012-2014, and as Associate Dean for Faculty Development from 2011-2013. In 2016 she was appointed as the Oneida Indian Nation Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.
Before entering academia, Carpenter clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit and was an associate attorney at Hill & Barlow, P.C. in Boston. She gained experience in Indian law as a clerk for the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation and at the law firms of Fredericks, Pelcyger, Hester & White and Sonosky, Chambers, Sachse, Miller & Munson. Professor Carpenter is a member of the American Law Institute, and serves on the Board of the Federal Bar Association's Indian Law Section.