Emily Parento is an independent health law and policy scholar and consultant. In 2022, she will be a visiting lecturer at UC Davis School of Law. Her primary scholarly focus is the intersection of domestic health law and policy with the human rights framework for the right to health and health equity. Parento has written in both national and global health law and policy, examining issues such as the impact of the Affordable Care Act on health disparities, legal strategies to strengthen health equity, and global trends in obesity-related regulation.

Parento has held tenure-track positions at multiple law schools, including working as an assistant professor of law at the University of Louisville from 2019 to 2020 and associate professor of law and the Gordon D. Schaber Health Law Scholar at the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law from 2015 to 2018. Prior to McGeorge, she served as executive director of the Office of Health Policy for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, advising the administration of Governor Steven L. Beshear during the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Before her government service, Parento held a fellowship at the O’Neill Institute and served as a visiting assistant professor at the University of Louisville Louis D. Brandeis School of Law. Earlier in her career, she served as a federal judicial clerk and practiced litigation at Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York and California.

Parento holds a J.D. and LL.M. from Georgetown University Law Center, a BBA from the University of Notre Dame, and is admitted to the state bars of California, New York, and Kentucky.

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