Megan T. Stevenson

Megan Stevenson is an economist and criminal justice scholar. She conducts empirical research in areas such as bail, algorithmic risk assessment, misdemeanors, sentencing and juvenile justice.

Stevenson was the inaugural winner of the Ephraim Prize, given to an “early-career scholar in the field of law and economics whose work has advanced the state of knowledge in the field” and the 2024 recipient of the Shannon Fellowship, “to honor outstanding mid-career faculty from across the University.” She was the 2019 winner of the Oliver E. Williamson Prize for Best Article in the Journal of Law, Economics and Organization. She served on the board of directors of the American Law and Economics Association from 2021-24 and was the 2024 chair of the Law and Economics section at Association of American Law Schools.

Stevenson publishes widely in both law reviews and economic journals, including the Stanford Law Review, Quarterly Journal of Economics, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and Review of Economics and Statistics. Her research on bail was cited extensively in a landmark federal civil rights decision, O’Donnell v. Harris County, and has received widespread media coverage. Her research has been profiled in The Washington Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Wired Magazine, The Atlantic, Science Magazine, Time magazine, Newsweek, the Houston Chronicle and many others. Prior to joining the law faculty at UVA, Stevenson was an Assistant Professor of Law at George Mason University and a Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Quattrone Center. She holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.