Rate My Professor Stella Elias

Stella Burch Elias is a Professor and Bouma Family Fellow at the University of Iowa College of Law. She earned a BA and an MA from Oxford University and a JD from Yale Law School. In her role at Iowa Law, Professor Elias teaches civil procedure, international law, immigration law, and comparative law courses. She also directs Iowa’s London Law Program. Her scholarship centers on public international and comparative law, with a particular focus on United States and foreign immigration and nationality laws. Elias joined the University of Iowa faculty as a tenure-track professor, receiving the James N. Murray Faculty Award in 2014-2015, which recognizes excellence among early-career faculty. She holds the Chancellor William Gardiner Hammond Fellowship and was honored with the Hubbard-Walder Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2026 by the University of Iowa Council on Teaching.

Professor Elias has made significant contributions to immigration law scholarship through numerous publications in top-tier law journals. Her highly cited article, 'The New Immigration Federalism,' appeared in the Ohio State Law Journal in 2013 and has shaped discussions on the role of states in immigration policy. Other key works include 'Immigrant Covering' in the William & Mary Law Review (2017), exploring assimilation pressures on immigrants; 'Law as a Tool of Terror' in the Iowa Law Review (2021), critiquing nationality-based restrictions; 'The Perils and Possibilities of Refugee Federalism' in the American University Law Review (2016); and 'Testing Citizenship' in the Boston University Law Review (2016). Recent publications feature 'Immigration Federalism in the Second Trump Administration' in the Idaho Law Review (2025) and 'Against Attorney General Self-Referral in Immigration Law,' co-authored with Paul Gowder, in the Minnesota Law Review (2025). She co-authored a book chapter, 'Nishimura Ekiu v. United States,' in Feminist Judgments: Immigration Law Opinions Rewritten (2024) and contributed to the open-access resource Rules and Laws for Civil Actions (2025). Elias's work, cited extensively in academic literature, addresses immigration enforcement, federalism, constitutional violations, preventive detention, and citizenship, influencing policy and legal debates in her field.