Aya GruberSpeaker and Booking Agent Information

King in Miami, Florida, after graduating from law school, and then worked as a criminal trial attorney for the Public Defender Service in Washington, D.C., and the Federal Public Defender in Miami. Professor Gruber's current research and teaching interests include criminal law and process, critical theory, feminism, and comparative and international law.

Her research focuses on feminist initiatives to improve the criminal justice system's reaction to crimes against women.

Her article The Feminist War on Crime (2007) combines her experience as a public defender with extensive research on domestic violence reform in the United States to articulate a feminist critique of policies like mandatory arrest and prosecution—a critique that has influenced academics, lawyers, and policymakers.

Through many extensively taught and often quoted publications, Professor Gruber expanded this approach to rape law (Rape Feminism, and the War on Crime, 2009) and other areas of criminal law, ranging from homicide to human trafficking.

Professor Gruber has authored a book on comparative criminal procedure, papers on treaty law and human rights, and articles on criminal procedure and privacy, in addition to her work on gender and crime. Professor Gruber began teaching at the University of Colorado in 2010. The Outstanding New Faculty Member Award was given to her by the students in 2012.

She gave the Austin W. Scott, Jr. Talk in 2013, which is a public lecture given by a faculty member who is working on an important intellectual project. Gruber was granted the Gilbert Goldstein Fellowship in 2015, which is given yearly to a significant scholarly effort.

For her essay, A Provocative Defense, she earned the Jules Milstein Award in 2017, which is presented to the outstanding faculty work of study in the previous two years (2015). Since 2015, Professor Gruber has worked as a fellow at the University's Center for Values and Social Policy.

Gruber was a founding faculty member of Florida International University Law School and a professor of law at the University of Iowa before coming to Colorado. Professor Gruber was elected to the American Law Institute in 2016 and has long served as a consultant to the ALI Model Penal Code sexual assault project.

She has examined high-profile college sexual assault and harassment incidents as a member of the University of Colorado Boulder Faculty Assembly and chair of the University's grievance committee.

Professor Gruber is a regular public speaker on criminal justice issues, has been on PBS, Fox News, and ABC, as well as being mentioned in the Denver Post, Slate, and the New York Times.