Tracey L. Meares is the Walton Hale Hamilton professor of law and founding director of The Justice Collaboratory at Yale University. Before arriving at Yale, she was Max Pam professor of law and director of the Center for Studies in Criminal Justice at the University of Chicago Law School. At both the University of Chicago and Yale Law Schools, she was the first African-American woman to be granted tenure.

Before going into academia, Professor Meares clerked for the Honorable Harlington Wood, Jr., of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and served as an honors program trial attorney in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. Professor Meares has worked extensively with the federal government, serving from 2004 to 2011 on the Committee on Law and Justice, a National Research Council Standing Committee of the National Academy of Sciences.