Professor Conklin’s research interests are in American legal and intellectual history. She completed her B.S. in English and M.A. in Education at Truman State University and studied law and history at the University of Virginia through a joint J.D./M.A. program in American legal history. She was awarded the School of Law’s Madeleine and John Traynor Prize for her Master’s thesis, which explored state court treatment of arbitration in early America. Professor Conklin served as Associate Professor of History and Co-Director of the Pre-Law Professional Program at John Brown University before returning to U.Va. to complete her Ph.D. in History. Her dissertation explored the meaning of the pursuit of happiness in historical context.

Professor Conklin’s research has been published by the American Journal of Legal History, the Ohio State University Journal on Dispute Resolution, the University of Missouri Journal of Dispute Resolution, and the Washington University Jurisprudence Review. Her recent book, The Pursuit of Happiness in the Founding Era:  An Intellectual History, was published through the Kinder Institute’s Studies in Constitutional Democracy monograph series with the University of Missouri Press.

Professor Conklin teaches courses in lawyering and dispute resolution at the School of Law and courses on intellectual history at the Kinder Institute. She serves as the Kinder Institute Director of Undergraduate Studies, coordinating, among other things, the Society of Fellows program and the Constitutionalism and Democracy Honors College course series.