Ela Leshem

Biography

Ela Leshem came to Oxford to complete a doctorate in philosophy and a masters in political theory. She is now a law professor at Fordham, where she teaches and writes about the property and personhood status of human bodies, nation states, animals, fetuses, religious artifacts, venerated objects, and artificial intelligence. Before joining Fordham in 2024, Ela was a fellow at the Senate Judiciary Committee and clerked for Judge David Barron on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Ela holds a JD and BA from Yale, where she served as Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Law Journal. During her time at Yale, she worked for Gupta Wessler in D.C., Public Counsel in Los Angeles, Judge Jeffrey Meyer at the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut, and Justice Goodwin Liu at the California Supreme Court. Ela studied music at the University of the Arts in Bern, Switzerland, and at the State University of Music in Stuttgart, Germany.