David H. Kaye

Before joining the Penn State Law faculty, Professor Kaye was Regents' Professor of Law and of Life Sciences at Arizona State University. He has held visiting teaching or research appointments at Cornell University, Duke University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Chicago, University of Virginia, and Yale University. Internationally, he has taught in England and China.

Professor Kaye also worked as an Assistant Special Prosecutor on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, an associate in a private law firm in Portland, Oregon, and a law clerk to Judge Alfred T. Goodwin of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He holds degrees in law (Yale University), astronomy (Harvard University), and physics (MIT).

Professor Kaye’s research focuses on evidence, criminal procedure, the use of science and statistics in litigation, and on genetics and the law. He has served on committees or advisory panels of the American Statistical Association, the National Academy of Sciences, the National Commission on Forensic Science, the National Commission on the Future of DNA Evidence, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the Organization of Scientific Area Committees in Forensic Science, and the International Conferences on Forensic Inference and Statistics. His research has been funded by the American Bar Foundation, the Department of Commerce (NIST), the Department of Energy (Human Genome Project), and the Department of Justice (NIJ). 

Professor Kaye has been on the editorial boards of four academic journals and has repeatedly served as editor of the American Bar Association publication, Jurimetrics: The Journal of Law, Science, and Technology. His publications include 12 books, 17 book chapters, and over 180 articles and letters in journals of law, philosophy, psychology, medicine, genetics, and statistics. He is a recipient of the Association of American Law Schools’ Wigmore Lifetime Achievement Award for contributions to the law of evidence.

In addition to pursuing these academic and professional interests, Professor Kaye has taught Aikido at Penn State, led guided tours for trekking companies, and participated in first ascents in Alaska and China.