Villanova Law Welcomes New Faculty Members in Fall 2024
Mark C. Alexander, the Arthur J. Kania Dean of Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law, has appointed three new Villanova Law faculty members for the 2024-25 academic year:
- Anton Robinson, Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Caritas Clemency Clinic
- Alivn Padilla-Babilonia, Assistant Professor of Law
- Daniel Long, Assistant Professor of Law (beginning January 2025)
This year, Villanova Law also welcomes three visiting faculty members:
- John Oberdiek, Visiting Professor (fall semester only)
- Santiago Mollis, Visiting Assistant Professor
- Jacqueline Penrod, Visiting Assistant Professor and Director of the Health Law Clinic
"I am thrilled to welcome these new faculty members to Villanova Law," said Dean Alexander. "They bring expertise and hands-on knowledge to our community and classrooms. I have no doubt they will positively impact on our students and that they are excellent additions to our outstanding faculty."
Anton Robinson is an expert on criminal defense, specializing in post-conviction litigation. He has dedicated his career to exposing and eradicating racism and other forms of bias within the criminal legal system. Robinson has dedicated most of his legal career to indigent defense, litigating complex criminal matters with public defense offices in Orlando, FL; New York, NY; and Philadelphia, PA. Before joining Villanova, Robinson was a senior staff attorney in the Strategic Litigation Unit at the Innocence Project.
Alvin Padilla-Babilonia's scholarship focuses on the constitutional legacy of American colonialism and the relationship between law, race, and empire. Padilla-Babilonia previously taught at the University of Puerto Rico School of Law. In 2022, he was selected as a Bridging the Divides fellow for the decolonization study group funded by the Mellon Foundation and convened by the Center for Puerto Rican Studies. He was also a Yale University Fox International Fellow at the University of San Andrés in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Daniel Long will join Villanova Law in January 2025. He practices law as a partner at Paul Frank + Collins P.C. in Burlington, VT. Previously, he was an associate at Mintz Levin and Foley & Lardner in Boston, MA. His practice focuses on labor and employment law and commercial litigation in trial and appellate courts and before administrative agencies. His practice also frequently involves litigation under civil rights statutes, restrictive covenant and employee mobility issues, complex business disputes, and fiduciary duty and corporate governance issues.
John Oberdiek is a distinguished professor at Rutgers Law School. He writes and teaches in torts and tort theory, private law theory generally, as well as legal, political and moral philosophy. Oberdiek is also an associate graduate faculty member in the Rutgers-New Brunswick philosophy department, a faculty affiliate of the Rutgers Center for Population-Level Bioethics, and director of the Rutgers Institute for Law and Philosophy. Before joining the Rutgers faculty in 2004, he practiced law at Arnold & Porter in Washington, DC.
Santiago Mollis focuses his research and teaching at the intersection of criminal law, criminology, and political theory. His scholarship engages theoretical and practical lines of inquiry into how contemporary societies respond to crimes. Previously, Mollis collaborated with the Cornell Center on Death Penalty Worldwide and Cornell Law’s Gender Justice Clinic. In addition, he clerked for the Public Prosecutor’s Office within the Federal Criminal Appellate Court in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Jacqueline Penrod is particularly focused on the ways in which public health and education policies play a role in perpetuating health and income inequity. She brings a decade of professional experience in the healthcare industry in addition to nearly fifteen years of legal practice in managed healthcare, healthcare compliance and the legal issues surrounding healthcare data interchange. In addition to advocacy and teaching, she is pursuing a master of education degree focused on adult learning and global change in an international cohort program at the University of British Columbia.