Rooksby Receives $10,000 Excellence in Scholarship Award

Dr. Jacob Rooksby, assistant professor of law, was recently presented with the Dr. John and Liz Murray Excellence in Scholarship Award.

Rooksby, who is the second law faculty member to receive the $10,000 award, received the news during the School of Law’s June 1 Commencement Ceremony.

“I was absolutely shocked when (Law) Dean (Ken) Gormley announced at graduation that I had received this award,” explained Rooksby. “To be recognized by my peers in this way, with an award whose progenitor is the law school’s most prolific, respected and widely known scholar, Chancellor Murray, is humbling and a deep honor.”

Rooksby teaches courses on the fundamentals of intellectual property; law and higher education; social media and the law; technology innovation law; and torts. His work has been published in the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology, the Yale Journal of Law & Technology, the Journal of Law & Education, the Akron Law Review and The Chronicle of Higher Education. Rooksby also is a contributing editor for the HigherEducationLaw blog.

“Law professors have a special duty to read the word and read the world, to use theory to inform practice,” Rooksby added. “Since law is an applied profession, what we write can help shape institutions, legal systems and decision-making today. Practicing attorneys face different constraints and reward structures than we do. As I see it, we as law professors have the unique opportunity, and the obligation, to conduct research that quite literally can change how people think and act.”

Rooksby is secretary/treasurer of the Pittsburgh Intellectual Property Law Association and is a member of the Association of University Technology Managers.