Building families, testing systems: the complex impact of assisted reproduction

Judith Daar is the Ambassador Patricia L. Herbold Dean and Professor of Law at the Salmon P. Chase College of Law at Northern Kentucky University. Since assuming the deanship in July 2019, Dean Daar has helped establish new programming and enhanced opportunities at Chase, including the David & Nancy Wolf Program in Ethics and Professional Identity, the Center on Addiction Law & Policy, the Finish Line Fund, and the W. Bruce Lunsford Academy on Law, Business & Technology. Under her stewardship, Chase has received the three largest gifts in the law school’s 130-plus year history, facilitating faculty development and student success. Additionally, under Dean Daar’s leadership, Chase has received national acclaim for its innovative business curriculum and for supporting graduates in public service career paths. In fall 2025, Dean Daar will preside over the ribbon-cutting on a new state-of-the art courtroom at Chase, following a successful two-year fundraising effort to realize this capital project.

Dean Daar was formerly a Visiting Professor at the University of California, Irvine School of Law and a Clinical Professor at the University of California Irvine, School of Medicine. Her academic career in the health law field focuses on emerging technologies in family formation. Her law school teaching includes courses in Property, Wills & Trusts, Health Law, Bioethics and Reproductive Technologies and the Law. In 2006, Dean Daar published the first and to date only casebook in the field of assisted reproductive technologies, Reproductive Technologies and the Law. A second edition was published in 2013 and a third edition adding three co-authors was published in 2022 by Carolina Academic Press. Dean Daar’s other book, The New Eugenics: Selective Breeding in an Era of Reproductive Technologies, was published in 2017 by Yale University Press.

Dean Daar has spoken extensively on legal, medical and ethical issues in reproductive medicine, including giving testimony to the National Academies of Science and the California legislature. Her scholarly work includes over 100 book chapters, articles, white papers and editorials on a range of topics including germline genome editing, prenatal genetic testing, human reproductive cloning, regulation of reproductive technologies and malfeasance in the provision of assisted conception services. She is the recipient of several outstanding teaching awards, including the Jay Healey Distinguished Health Law Teacher of the Year and the Suheil J. Muasher, M.D. Distinguished Service Award. Previously, Dean Daar served as Chair of the Ethics Committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine and President of the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics. Her current service roles include membership on the Kentucky Bar Foundation Board of Directors, Kentucky Bar Association AI Task Force, Legal Aid of the Bluegrass Board, and St. Elizabeth Medical Center Ethics Committee. She received her BA from the University of Michigan and JD from Georgetown University Law Center.

Lead photo: istockphoto.com; Daar: provided