[Penn State Dickinson Law’s Profiles in Leadership | Dermot Groome]
I was delighted to sit down with my colleague Professor Dermot Groome for Penn State Dickinson Law’s Profiles in Leadership series.
Dermot’s career has been dedicated to accountability, truth, and justice, from his early work as a prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office to human rights investigations in
Jamaica and Cambodia, and his more than a decade-long service as a senior prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Our conversation ranged from the development of international criminal law across legal traditions to the challenges facing multilateral institutions, the doctrines of joint criminal enterprise and command responsibility, and the urgent work of training Ukrainian prosecutors and judges. We also discussed the growing importance of authenticated video archives and evidentiary infrastructure in an age of AI-generated media.
Dermot closes with a powerful reflection on vocation, reinvention, and principled lawyering. I hope you’ll watch

A meaningful last day of the semester with my Antitrust Law and Patent Law students and colleagues at Penn State Dickinson Law.

Both courses ask a great deal of law students: challenging doctrine, unsettled policy questions, and the skill of translating law into practice-ready advice. They rose to the challenge with seriousness, curiosity, and good humor. Glad to join Ilze Ambrasa Loc Brandon Le and Sarah Yu for a selfie to commemorate the close of the spring semester.

It was especially fitting to end the semester not only in the classroom, but in conversation and community.

Thank you to Tatev Martirosyan and Loc Brandon Le for inviting me to do a podcast, where we discussed IP, antitrust, AI, platforms, data, and the future of legal practice. Mjellma Kallaba, who is completing her LL.M. at Dickinson Law, was a guest on this podcast series, which will also feature my faculty colleagues.

I enjoyed ice cream with my colleague Jessica Seretti from Alumni Relations. It was a lovely reminder that law school is built not only through classes and cases, but also through relationships and a shared investment in our students during their time with us and after they graduate as alumni.

Grateful for this semester, for my students, and for the colleagues who make Penn State Dickinson Law a special community.

A productive time in Columbus, OH, where conversations around AI, intellectual property, and innovation are quickly moving from theory to practice.

It was great to join Dan Brown, PhD (Northwestern University) | Tony Trippe Owens Corning) | Phil Hartstein (Soryn IP Capital Management) on a panel on “AI + IP = ROI” at the IP Awareness Summit 2026 hosted at COSI – Center of Science and Industry. Dan, Tony, and Phil were excellent panelists. Our discussion focused on how AI is reshaping the way organizations create, evaluate, and extract value from intellectual property.

Thank you to Bruce Berman and his team for curating and convening such a thoughtful, timely program. Frederic “Dr. B” Bertley and Sara Leikin, Ed.D, Ed. D., were gracious hosts who respectively spoke eloquently on trust, transparency, and continued learning and fighting negative intellectual property stereotypes. The program as a whole benefited from a deep and diverse bench of speakers, and I am grateful for the many insights shared across panels.

It was a pleasure to reconnect with colleagues and to engage with new voices at the event.

It was also valuable to spend time with colleagues at The Ohio State University. Conversations with Joshua Gagliardi and Andrew Frueh highlighted how technology is transforming professional education, particularly in fields like nursing, where simulation, interface design, and human-centered systems intersect in powerful ways.

Allison Gaul | Terry Hart | Albhy Galuten | Jaci McDole | Tiffany Norwood | Ian D. McClure | Massyl M. | David Mess | Wayne Stacy | Diane Gabl Kratz, JD | James Conley | Arlyne Simon, Ph.D. | Corey Salsberg | Jamie Simpson

Congratulations to Fanaaka Chidakwa, who successfully defended his SJD candidacy. Fanaaka’s research focuses on how advances in AI are reshaping international humanitarian law. His dissertation interrogates concepts such as perfidy. I look forward to seeing how Fanaaka continues to develop this work.

Photo: with Fanaaka’s supervisor, Professor Ido Kilovaty, peers who came to support him, as well as my colleagues Professor Amy C. Gaudion and Lindsey Kurtz, who joined me as committee members for Fanaaka’s oral defense.

Great conversations often start with something simple: coffee—and in this case, ice cream.

I had the pleasure of hosting a University Park Coffee Hour at the Penn State Berkey Creamery with students from my antitrust course, and the thoughtful exchange on the paths they are charting into the profession. I was especially delighted to hear about their study abroad plans. These experiences will add an important global dimension to their legal training and shape how they approach complex, cross-border issues.

With Timothy Carroll, Jonathan Kelso, and Matt Fortin.