Dan Traficonte
Associate Professor of Law and Public Policy
Education
Harvard Law School, JD 2017
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, PhD 2021
Bio
Dan Traficonte is associate professor of law and public policy within the School of Law and the College of Social Sciences and Humanities. His teaching and research focus on the law and political economy of innovation and technology development, both in the US and abroad. His written work has focused in particular on the role of government-led R&D programs and university research in shaping science and technology. Professor Traficonte is also developing, with collaborators at MIT, a long-term project focused on US-China technology rivalry and the development of artificial intelligence. His work has been published in the Yale Law Journal, Harvard Journal of Law and Technology, Cardozo Law Review and other journals.
Prior to joining the Northeastern faculty in 2026, Professor Traficonte served as associate professor of law at Syracuse University College of Law, where he won the Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Teaching Recognition Award, a university-wide teaching award. He has taught property, patents and trade secrets, law and technology, and international technology law. He has also taught a study-abroad course in Seoul, South Korea, and several courses at Sciences Po in France.
Professor Traficonte received his PhD in political economy from MIT, where he wrote his dissertation on the legal history and political economy of the federal research system and worked as a research associate on the Institute-wide Work of the Future Task Force. He received his JD from Harvard Law School and his BA in biology from the University of Chicago.
Fields of Expertise
- Artificial Intelligence and the Law
- Copyright Law
- History of Science
- Intellectual Property
- International Development
- International Intellectual Property
- Law and Economic Development
- Law and Technology
- Patent Law
- Political Economy
- Property Law
- Robotics and Artificial Intelligence
- Technology Policy
Selected Works
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- “Government Research,” 135 Yale Law Journal (October 2025).
- “After the Storm: Post-Disaster Recovery and the Fair Housing Act,” 43 Virginia Environmental Law Journal 141 (2025) (co-author).
- “People Having Ordinary Skills in the Arts,” 37(2) Harvard Journal of Law and Technology 329 (2024) (co-author).
- “Collaboration in the Making: Innovation and the State in Advanced Manufacturing,” 21 Science and Technology Law Review 328 (2020).
- “A Flood — Not a Ripple — of Harm: Proximate Cause Under the Fair Housing Act,” 40 Cardozo Law Review 1237 (2019) (co-author).
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- “Innovation and the States: The Regional Manifestations of the Endless Frontier in the U.S. Rust Belt.” In Research Handbook on Regions and Transformative Innovation Policy, eds. S. Radosevic, S. Schwaag Serger and L. Soete (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2026)/
- “Blockchain and Cryptocurrency.” In Research Handbook on Law and Technology, ed. B. Brożek, O. Kanevskaia and P. Pałka (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2023).
