Biography
Sonia Gipson Rankin is a legal scholar and educator whose work combines her background in computer science with her passion for legal justice. She teaches in the fields of Torts, Family Law, Technology and the Law, and Introduction to Lawyering at the University of New Mexico School of Law. She is also Affiliated Faculty in the Department of Africana Studies.
Professor Gipson Rankin’s scholarship bridges technology and law. Her artificial intelligence and algorithms scholarship has been in the Washington and Lee Law Review, NYU Law Review Online, Wisconsin Law Review, Nature Reviews Electrical Engineering, and the ABA SciTech Magazine. She has also published on legal pedagogy, exploring themes of race, experiential learning, and family law issues in the Connecticut Law Review, Family Law Quarterly, and the Journal of Law and Education.
In addition to her academic contributions, Professor Gipson Rankin is deeply engaged in advancing equity and justice. She is an American Bar Foundation Fellow, serves on the New Mexico Supreme Court Commission on Equity and Justice, and is a former president of the New Mexico Black Lawyers Association. She is a founding member of the Interdisciplinary Working Group on Algorithmic Justice, a collaborative effort between computer scientists, legal scholars, and social scientists to advise policymakers on AI-related issues. Through the UNM Algorithmic Justice Project, which she co-founded, she delivers lectures on topics such as AI, algorithmic justice, deepfakes, and implicit bias to diverse audiences, including judges, legal professionals, and industry leaders nationwide.
Her insights on legal, political, and tech issues have been featured in international, national, and local media outlets, including television, newspapers, and podcasts. She frequently addresses a wide range of topics, including technology, constitutional law, kinship care, criminal justice reform, inclusive leadership, and Black community empowerment.
Prior to her current role, Professor Gipson Rankin held several leadership positions at the University of New Mexico. From 2012 to 2018, she served as Associate Dean for Curriculum and Program Development in University College. Earlier, she was the Associate Director (2009-2012) and Senior Lecturer in the Africana Studies Program (now Department). Her commitment to first-year college student success earned her recognition as one of 10 Outstanding First-Year Advocates by the National Resource Center in 2016.
Her contributions have also been recognized through numerous recognitions, including receiving the Woman of Influence Award in 2018, and winning the Garrett W. Flickinger Faculty Excellence Award for 2021-2022. In 2022, she was honored with a Women in STEM Award, and in 2023, she received the Professor Pamela Burgy Minzner Award for Faculty Excellence & Professionalism and in 2024 was named a Fellow for the Leadership Innovation for Faculty Transformation Program through the UNM Office of the Vice President for Research. She is particularly honored by awards from the UNM Law Student Bar Association: the Ice Cold Caller Award (2021) and the Save the World and Shoot for the Stars: the professor who inspires us to dream big and never give up Award (2023).
Her mission is to inspire students, communities, and systems to seek justice with a spirit of excellence. And to read comic books.
Frequent contributor and legal analyst for BBC World News, National Public Radio, Reuters, Yahoo! Finance, KOAT, KRQE, KUNM, Agence France-Presse, Barron’s, Forbes, UNM News, and Daily Lobo.
Continuing Legal Education and Judicial Education lectures for National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (2025, 2021); National Association of Women Judges (2024); Texas Appellate Court (2024); National Bar Association Judicial Council (2024); South Carolina Judicial Conference (2024); Rhode Island State Bar Annual Meeting (2024); New Jersey Criminal Defense Lawyers/New Jersey Public Defenders (2024); Conference of Chief Justices (2024); Albuquerque Bar Association (2024, 2023); New Mexico Black Lawyers Association (2024, 2023); New Mexico Access to Justice (2023); New Jersey Judicial College (2023); National Center for State Courts (2023); New Mexico Judicial Conclave (2023, 2021); Navajo Nation Judiciary (2023).
Guest lecturer/speaker at Purdue University (2025); Virginia Chamber of Commerce Legal Institute (2024); Nevada Oncology Society (2024); Univ. of Oregon (2024); New Mexico Technology in Education (2023); Wisconsin Law (2023); Duke Law (2024; 2023); National Center for State Courts (2023, 2022); Santa Fe Institute (2023, 2022); Brown University (2023); Defense Threat Reduction Agency (2023); American Constitutional Society (2023); Kirkland Air Force Base (2023); Defense Threat Reduction Agency (2023); Univ. of Tennessee (2022); University of Connecticut School of Law (2021); Sanda National Laboratories (2020); Rutgers University (2014).
