Rate My Professor Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar

Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar serves as a professor of law at Stanford Law School, where he previously held the Stanley Morrison Professorship and appointments by courtesy in political science and at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. A graduate of Harvard College with an A.B. magna cum laude in Government and Political Psychology (1993), Yale Law School with a J.D. (1997), and Stanford University with an M.A. (1996) and Ph.D. in political science (2000), Cuéllar joined the Stanford Law faculty in 2001 as an assistant professor, achieving tenure in 2007. He directed the Freeman Spogli Institute (2013-2015), co-directed the Center for International Security and Cooperation (2011-2013), and served as Justice on the Supreme Court of California from 2015 to 2021 while continuing to teach at Stanford. From 2021 to 2026, he was President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. In 2026, he returned to Stanford, becoming Sara Miller McCune Director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and Shriram Family Director of Knight-Hennessy Scholars.

Cuéllar’s research focuses on administrative law, the effects of artificial intelligence and emerging technologies on public institutions, American public law and democracy, and the political economy of administrative systems addressing transnational issues such as security, migration, public health, and illicit finance. Notable publications include "Governing Security: The Hidden Origins of American Security Agencies" (Stanford University Press, 2013), "Government by Algorithm: Artificial Intelligence in Federal Administrative Agencies" (Administrative Conference of the United States, 2020), "Economies of Surveillance" (133 Harvard Law Review 1280, 2020, with Aziz Huq), and "Responding to the Opioid Crisis in North America and Beyond" (2022). He has received the Great Immigrant Award (Carnegie Corporation, 2024), election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2018), and honorary Doctor of Laws from Santa Clara University (2016). Cuéllar has extensive public service experience, including as Special Assistant to the President for Justice and Regulatory Policy at the White House Domestic Policy Council (2009-2010), Senior Advisor at the U.S. Department of the Treasury (1997-1999), co-chair of the U.S. Department of Education's Equity and Excellence Commission (2011-2013), and current service on the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board and the U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board. He chairs the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation board.