Dr. Mary Anne Franks is a Professor of Law at the University of Miami School of Law, where she teaches criminal law, criminal procedure, First Amendment law, and family law. Before joining the UM faculty, Dr. Franks was a Bigelow Fellow and Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago School of Law and a Lecturer in Social Studies at Harvard University. Dr. Franks received her J.D. in 2007 from Harvard Law School and her D.Phil in 2004 and M.Phil in 2001 from Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar.

Her areas of research include free speech, online abuse, discrimination, and gun violence. She is also the Legislative & Tech Policy Director and Vice-President of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI), a non-profit organization dedicated to challenging online harassment and abuse. In that capacity, Professor Franks advises tech industry leaders on privacy and abuse issues and has helped legislators in more than two dozen US states and the federal government draft legislation to protect sexual privacy. She is also a co-producer of the documentary Hot Girls Wanted, which examines the “professional amateur” porn industry. Her academic scholarship has appeared in publications such as the California Law Review and the UCLA Law Review; her popular press publications include The Atlantic, the Guardian, TIME Magazine, and the Huffington Post.