Lauren Robel was named provost of Indiana University Bloomington and executive vice president of Indiana University in 2012. She is the Val Nolan Professor of Law in the Maurer School of Law, where she served as dean from 2002 to 2011 and as associate dean from 1991 to 2002. She joined the Law School faculty in 1985.
Professor Robel received her J.D. from the Maurer School of Law in 1983 and her B.A. from Auburn University in 1978. Her scholarly work focuses on the role of federal courts, and co-author of Federal Courts: Cases and Materials on Judicial Federalism and the Lawyering Process (LEXISNEXIS 2005), a casebook on federal jurisdiction written with Arthur Hellman. Robel has also been a visiting faculty member at Université Panthéon-Assas (Paris II), where she published a book, Les États des Noirs: Fédéralisme et question raciale aux États-unis, (Presses Universitaires de France, 2000), with Professor Elisabeth Zoller. As a provost, she is a frequent speaker on issues involving higher education, including First Amendment and speech issues on campus.
She served president of the Association of American Law Schools in 2011–2012, and on its Executive Committee. She serves as a board member of the American Bar Foundation Advisory Board, the Law School Survey of Student EngagementBoard, and the National Survey of Student Engagement Board.