Allison B. Tirres

Professor Allison Brownell Tirres is a historian and legal scholar who teaches and writes in the areas of constitutional law, property law, immigration and civil rights. Her current research focuses on noncitizen civil rights in both historical and contemporary perspectives. Her academic work is published or forthcoming in leading law reviews and journals, including Law & Social Inquiry, the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, the Michigan Journal of Race & Law, the Georgetown Immigration Law Journal, and the American Journal of Legal History, among others. She also contributes to media, blogs and editorial pages, with recent work appearing in Jotwell, Public Books and the Washington Post. Professor Tirres served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Strategic Initiatives from 2014-2017 and 2020-2023. In that role, she was instrumental in establishing new programs and shepherding curricular reform efforts in the areas of diversity, equity and inclusion. She has been engaged in interdisciplinary work as the co-founder of the DePaul Migration Collaborative and as an inaugural participant in the Vincentian Pedagogy Project. In 2020, Professor Tirres received the university's Excellence in Teaching award. She has also received College of Law awards for Faculty Scholarship, Faculty Service and Faculty Achievement. In 2018, she was visiting associate professor at the University of Chicago Law School. In 2023-2024, she is visiting associate professor at Santa Clara University School of Law. Professor Tirres received her bachelor's degree magna cum laude from Princeton University, her JD from Harvard Law School, where she was an editor and treasurer of the Harvard Law Review, and her PhD in American History from Harvard University. Her dissertation and subsequent works explored the legal history of the U.S.-Mexico border in the nineteenth century.