Kristen Stanley specializes in the interplay between trauma and the law. She regularly trains legal teams in trauma-informed practices to better serve those who have experienced trauma and to decrease attorney burnout and stress.
Stanley’s scholarship explores the impact of trauma on neurobiology, human development, brain functioning and interpersonal relationships, particularly in the context of the criminal judicial system. She is also interested in the social, cultural and political forces that shape exposure to, and recovery from, traumatic experiences, and the effects of and effective treatment of trauma.
Before joining the academy, Stanley spent more than a decade representing death-sentenced individuals in their federal habeas corpus and state post-conviction proceedings. As an assistant federal public defender in the Capital Habeas Unit of the Office of the Federal Public Defender for the Middle District of Tennessee, Stanley represented individuals under sentence of death in their federal habeas proceedings in Federal District Court, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, the United States Supreme Court, and Tennessee state court proceedings. Stanley also practiced in Louisiana where she represented individuals sentenced to death in state post-conviction proceedings.