A PYMNTS Company

Abbey Stemler

Professor Stemler is a leading scholar on the sharing economy. Her scholarship and teaching have garnered many national awards, and she is frequently sought out for her expertise on platform-based technology companies, such as Facebook, Uber, and Google. She has published multiple articles in leading journals such as the Iowa Law Review, Emory Law Journal, Maryland Law Review, Georgia Law Review, and Harvard Journal on Legislation. Her research explores the interesting spaces where law has yet to catch up with technology. In particular, her aim is to expose the evolving realities of Internet-based innovations and platforms and to find ways to effectively regulate them without hindering their beneficial uses. As she sees it, many modern firms inhabit a world that operates under alien physics—where free is often costly and “smart” is not always wise. She employs tools and insights from economics, behavioral science, regulatory theory, and rhetoric to understand how we, as a society, can better protect consumers, privacy, and democracy. Professor Stemler is also a faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center or Internet & Society at Harvard University, practicing attorney, entrepreneur (she sold her first business at age 29), and consultant for governments and multinational organizations such as the World Bank Group.